I Underestimated the Scope of My First Build
Hello, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well.
My name is Matthew, also known as Pointy. Happy Sunday! 🙂
I recently published my first world and wanted to share it with you all via this forum. When I started building my first world, I focused entirely on the construction phase and eventually completed it. However, I hadn’t considered how much time the game mechanics would take. So, I decided to learn scripting and even hired someone to teach me. While I was picking up coding skills, I began losing motivation for that first world, not because I didn’t care about it, but because I was so eager to publish it after finishing the build. I hadn’t realized that scripting and game mechanics were an entirely separate challenge and art form. To keep my momentum going and avoid rushing my original project, I started working on a second world to give my brain a sense of completion.
For this new project, I kept things simple and focused on creating a jumping platformer game. I used basic code block scripting, which aligned with what I was learning in my lessons at the time. This world was built in Primitive, before I fully grasped the potential of custom world-building (which I’ll save for my next project).
If anyone’s interested in checking out my platformer, it’s called Highway of Beds. I had a blast designing a simple yet progressively challenging course. It might not be tough for everyone, but for me, it was a great learning experience, creating something manageable without overextending my current skills. (I’m still learning, and my next world will explore new game mechanics!)
Highway of Beds came about because I underestimated the scope of my first world. Along the way, I fell in love with designing bed-themed courses, which laid a foundation for my future builds on what can be done with just basic materials. I explored other creators’ worlds and drew inspiration from features like checkpoints and saved progress. Things I hadn’t even considered before, probably because I’m so new to the “game world.” With that in mind, I added a “return to lobby” feature at the start of each course: “Hug pillow to return to lobby.”
A couple of weeks ago, I held my first playtest for Highway of Beds and got a ton of feedback. Players found the courses extremely difficult and honestly, they were right. I’d spent hours testing my own levels, pushing them to the point where they were nearly impossible even for me. I grew up playing only Mario (and still do, until recently), so I’m used to replaying tough levels over and over. But I realized not everyone is as stubborn as I am! And that Mario is supposed to be for everyone. After hearing from adults, kids, and even moderators from other worlds, I reworked the courses to be more playable and less frustrating. I also added extra checkpoints to the tougher later level “accidents happen” to help players out. “Accidents happen” course has yellow splotches that represent pee on the mattress, don’t touch the pee you’ll teleport back a few beds.
The only thing I didn’t change was the final level. I kept it without mid-checkpoints. I figured it might be fun to leave one really hard challenge. That level, “Level Pink,” was a blast to design only because I incorporated a few recorded animated objects, grouping them into my little “pillow monsters.”
I wanted to share the ups and downs of creating my first published world. If anyone tries Highway of Beds and has firsthand experiences or thoughts to share, please feel free to add to this thread!
Cheers!
Matthew aka Pointy
I’m attaching some pictures to this post. 🙂
