The following tutorial assumes that you have read, and partially understood the previous page
...and at the very least assumes you've done what it said.
Previous Level Editor tutorials have tended to be huge great blocks of text, which proved difficult to read, and even more difficult to follow. Even with a couple of screenshots, it was still difficult to get any real understanding across.
So... I'm trying something completely different...
The World of Goo Level Editor Video Tutorial
It's in 8 parts, so I've made a playlist.
Don't worry several of the parts are quite short, total running time is about 20 mins.
It takes you from Clicking the "New Level" button
through initial design and fixing some issues
to adding finishing touches and finally saving a .goomod file
I think it's pretty well annotated, and explains what's happening as it goes along.
Once you've finished....
Polite request: Please don't all upload your "My First Level" levels.. we'll have hundreds of 'em.
My Next Level
Now that you've made your first level, you probably can't wait to make your next.
Here's a few tips....
Getting Help
There's a pretty good and ever expanding FAQ - Here
We're also working on several Reference, Info and Guide pages - here
And if you still can't figure out how to do something... ask in the forums.
Don't try to re-invent the Wheel (or Cogs, or Windmills)
At least to begin with, almost everything you'll want to do will have been done before, or something quite similar. If you can think of an original level that did something like what you want, load it up and take a look at how 2DBoy did it.
You can even Copy and Paste stuff from the original levels into yours.
It may seem "naggy"...but it's for your own good!
When you first come to save your next level, chances are WooGLE is going to list 27 different things that are wrong with it... some of them will be CRITICAL and it will insist that you fix them before you go any further.
I know it's annoying... but "in the olden days" (a couple of months ago) it would let you try to play any old rubbish. The consequence usually was... the game crashed.. and you didn't know why. If there were actually 27 things wrong with your level, you would never find them all by just trial and error.
Let us know if your level crashes the game
We're pretty sure that WooGLE will catch most of the stuff that will crash the game, but we never cease to be amazed by some of the really "weird and wonderful" stuff that new level designers try. So we ask for your help.....
If you make a level, and WooGLE lets you play it, and the game crashes....
WE WANT TO KNOW!
You best way forward is... make a goomod of the level, upload it somewhere then post in the forums (with a link).. so the "experts" can take a look and figure out what you've done wrong, and what we've missed.
Don't try to make them too hard!
There is a tendancy for new designers (and experienced ones actually) to try to make levels that are hard to beat.
This is a problem for 2 reasons...
i) You actually want people to play your level and enjoy it. If it's too hard they won't.
ii) There are some PHENOMENALLY GOOD players around, and even if you think the level is really hard, they will probably be able to finish it in 3s and 0 moves and collect every single ball you put in there.
If you try to make the level so hard even they can't do it... NO-ONE else will even get close... so what's the point?
Most importantly...
Try to make your levels interesting and fun it's difficult to tell you how to do that.. but try!
And don't feel like you have to crank out levels by the hour, or even by the day. The best levels take time to create, once you really get into it, you'll spend ages tweaking things to get them "just" right.. and playing them over and over to check that every little detail is spot on, before you upload.
It does take time, but usually results in much better, more enjoyable levels.