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playtesting while you design kaizo

Kaizo

When creating kaizo levels, how often and how do you go about playtesting your levels?

Considering the fact that kaizo hacks are designed to be difficult and sometimes barely possible, I imagine its a decent amount. How many tweaks or new sections in LM before you play it? And when it's done, do you spend time looking for breaks?

Personally, I will make a rough idea of a section or try something out in LM, then play, fiddle, repeat, until that section is to my liking. Then I start on the next section, and once that is done I will play the level back from the beginning without saves. This goes on until it is totally finished, then I will make sure I can beat the level multiple times, making sure nothing stands out as too annoying.

I'm interested in your approach, especially from those that design with tools in mind/
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Pretty much the same. I design 1-2 obstacles at a time if the level is gimmicky, maybe 2-4 if the level is more traditional.
When I make pit levels, I often start with an idea I like, then try and fit more things in around it to make it difficult. I often end up with something completely different from what I started with, so I can use my original idea later on. I would playtest every time you put in a new obstacle, but the real key to making a good hack is making it feel like it's not just one obstacle after another, but a continuous, flowing series of difficulty.
I usually create a few obstacles then test them and work on it until I like them. Then I create a few more obstacles and first test if the previous obstacles and the ones I just made feel like they belong together if they do then I test the new ones until I like them if they don't I usually don't realize and keep it change it.

Since my hacks are usually Kaizo hard I don't play through the whole thing until I finished everything. I do often playtest seperate parts of the level and at the end play through everything again to see if I still like it.
I usually come up with one gimmick or idea, split it into atleast 8 sections, pick out the best 2~3 and then use those

I make one of the 2~3 parts, play it, make the second, play both, make the third, play all 3, etc.

I'm working on level 11 for my hack atm, and I've just about finished (almost) the first section. I'm going to test it, and see if I can come up with a way to skip part of it (because this is near the end, I want to make sure there are no severe skips or breaks) and then, in the end - I should have atleast 200 rerecords at 50~75% speed, otherwise it's too easy.


If however, I think that the level is too hard, I'll remove a section (or two if it's that hard) from the total amount of parts of the level to balance it out.


lost my computer which had lwrc4 on it, rip.

new hack soonTM

I always create a section and then tweak it tons of times, although I sometimes take it out if I don't like it. I also look for possible breaks and find a way to prevent them somehow, but if they are relatively minor then that's not a big deal.

The key to create overly difficult but creative sections is to go with the flow and always test it over and over until you feel satisfied enough with it. Not forgetting to get unique whenever you can.
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I always playtest my levels. I do just a few obstacles at once or if I use Lunar Magic once, I change something, like maybe level palettes or overworld. I don't spend too much time on finding breaks, but I'm really sure there's not too many.
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Basically, I believe in peace and bashing two bricks together.

I've gotten used to using slowdown, even if the level does not really call for it. Tedious-feeling playtesting has been a factor in my decision to not try to make as many marathon levels. Levels that feel more organized feel a lot more fun to play-test than ones where I feel I "tried too hard." Extreme puzzle stages where I try to cram as much guide-dang-it complexity as possible, using glitches when applicable, are not really fun to play-test anymore.
I only spend some of the time trying to find breaks, and it's usually as I go, and if I think I might have a hunch.
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Kaizo