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Is not always editing your levels in order a good idea?

I've noticed people say they're working on world 5 or something, and that they also have 10% of world 8 completed. Why is that?
Because they want to.

I'm this weird person who always works on the worlds in order from world 1 to whatever and never works out of order. I do wonder the same thing as you now that you bring it up.
I'd say it's mostly fine for people to do this as long as their hack isn't plot heavy or just doesn't have any form of plot (development) whatsoever; things can screw up if you do. But of course, people can still make things work out even if their hack contains plot. But really, it doesn't matter what order people decide to do things. If things screw up for them then their lost, and if it doesn't then good for them.

Some people do other worlds just because they're simply de-motivated with making levels for whatever world theme they're working on usually.
I generally support working non-linearly, since you probably won't have all your ideas come to you in order. You may have an idea for a level that fits in world 5's theme while you're working on world 2, and you don't really want to put off inspiration. Also if you force yourself to work on particular levels even though you don't have any good ideas, this often results in a worse level.
It really depends on the thing you're doing. Super Mario World hacks aren't metroidvania, so they don't have to have concise level planning. It's more about the moment rather than the overall experience or connections.

That said, predicting the percentage of a world you've got done is pretty stupid and it should stop.
Originally posted by Torchkas
That said, predicting the percentage of a world you've got done is pretty stupid and it should stop.

Why? If you know you're going to have, say, 10 levels, and you finish one, then it really is 10% complete.
I don't do that silly percentage thing, but I work out of order when I have a great idea I want to poll off early so I don't forget it later. Because my hack is 1/3 done (The second half and the extra content), I sort of want to at least set up certain things earlier so it's easier in the long run, while designing the levels in order.
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TIL easy-to-read statistical estimates are silly and dumb for no real reason

i will make sure to show how many levels i have done through fractions when i make my hack so it is not silly
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I do sometimes things like this and I did this in one of my recent projects. The main reasons are because I had some ideas on further levels, and I didn't want to lose my inspiration with it. The second reason is, because I'm not the best at introduction levels. I like creating medium-hard or challenging levels, that's why I quickly lose motivation on making worlds 1-2 until I get with an interesting gimmick. Also, I'm trying to keep the difficulty balanced (some hacks have slightly challenging W2 levels, while some of the W5-6 levels are easier than these). Oh, and I don't do the percentage stuff, I don't find it neccesarry. I think it's not anything wrong if people do so, just I didn't.

This really depends on the way how people design levels and their inspiration.

I always edit levels in order.
Nothing more to say.
But maybe when in Boss fights, i make the boss ready and then put it.

The same person? Oh nevermind.

When making hacks with longer than average levels (any hack that is inspired by C|C or other similar hacks), I generally make them in order. If I'm making a hack with much shorter levels, I tend to make the levels in no particular order, usually influenced by how many ideas I have or how much fun I have working on a particular level. Luigi's Challenge is a particularly egregious case of this. Before working consistently on world 1, 2, and the overall overworld, I worked some on the special world and the last few levels, and I've only barely started on the last level. The updates have been so all over the place that I will only have at most a vague idea of how far I am until I am almost done, and estimating a percentage is like proving Euler's identity.
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Creating or editing levels out of order should not cause too many complications. As others have mentioned, random inspiration for later levels might strike, and it makes no sense to ignore that urge to jump ahead. The only big thing to keep in mind is progressive level difficulty, assuming a hack with a difficulty curve. If you jump around too much, you might forget about how you structured other levels in world.

Also, I have no complaints about people describing the percentages or fractional completion of worlds for their hacks. Yeah, it's not going to be accurate. But on the other hand, why does it really matter? It's just a small way to inform readers of the hack's progress. Real life matters, technology, and more can easily accelerate or slow the speed of work on a hack, so nothing is set in stone. A percentage serves as a quick display of work. That is effective enough for me.
I prefer to edit my levels in order just for organization purposes. If I go from, say, 1-4 to 6-1 to 4-3, then the ExGFX files, Map16 tiles, sprite numbers, and the like get all out of order, and that bugs me. I do still write down possible ideas and names for future levels, though.

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As some of you might know, I'm really weird regarding the level order. I almost always do it out of order, no matter if it's a C|C styled hack or not. It usually depends on how much fun I have working on the levels or how influenced I'm most of the time, and I want to set things up a bit early so I can have an idea of what will be the gimmick and not get lost at a later point of the hack, thus avoiding possible complications.
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I usually make my levels in a random order, starting from which ideas I feel most inspired to make a level out of. I assumed that was the norm. The only caveat to that idea is that making a progressive difficulty curve can be more challenging.
If you do make your levels out of order then you can always reorder them when you create the actual game so that the sequence that the levels will appear to the player is in a coherent manner.


I usually create the overworld first, and once I'm satisfied with it I can create any level in any order, but usually I try from early levels to late levels in that order.
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