"I believe that you show never be afraid to drop a layout if you aren't feeling it" I'm never able to finish layouts even if I _want_ to get it done, I lose motivation way too easily lol
"The visions that you see in your head are your style; your way of perceiving music." - norkbork 8:37 I think your the most powerful influence under my layout making. I cannot thank you enough.
What a great video tbh. All the information was organized and well explained, the information itself was beyond useful, and the only complain I have is your voice (it made me sleepy), so it's not that big of a complain at all. I wish I had discovered your channel sooner, 'cause you seem like the kind of guy that knows what he's talking about, and more than that, talks with passion about what he knows about. I'm also an avid Layout maker, love to experiment with new stuff all the time, have gotten into Duals lately and have been having a blast with them. I could've only gotten here building whatever I like with these tips tbh, this new generation of creators has it easy with videos like this detailing each and every step of the way to becoming a great "Layouter". Thank you for this video, as it will help a lot of people that need it. Also, why the hell not, I'm subbing.
@@norkbork The way you speak is how you perceive words. Don't change something just because someone tells you to ;) (If you couldn't tell, I'm using the context of this video to point towards a different topic. Primarily in a humorous way)
I am also a layout creator. I've dropped few of my layouts because that didn't looked good to me but when I made my latest layout, I've seen that I was improving. For structuring I used slopes,rectangular blocks and normal blocks and that went nice! I also made couple of assymetrical duals and they were amazing! I was really glad by my improvement and my inspiration was DeVeRel GD. Still I'm not that good at making gameplays but I will improve more and try to keep this up...
I’m super happy to see one of these tutorials that isn’t just a list of do’s and don’ts. I actually found quite a bit of this advice helpful myself, props for making such a well written and thought out video!
I can confirm that working with music that you like and vibe with, the layout will just make itsself. I used my favourite song for a layout once, an dhad no problem making it longer than 2 minutes
This is so true! People need to explore their own style. There are a handful of things that I think shouldn't be used, but they're pretty insignificant.
THANK you for mentioning the thing about how if you don't conform to the basic and boring layout style that everyone else uses, I typically build extremely fast and portal intensive GP that gets heavily criticised and I seem to consistently recieve the phrase: "Looks unfun." I also tend to use size portals and dual portals to add extra effects and flavour to my level without changing the gameplay and yet for some reason people seem to hate that, and call me lazy for using them to sync to the song, it's like they want me to make every note an input or something.
8:37 that is the best explanation that I could never speak about, my mind is so much more advanced than my levels and I could never get it on there like I saw it
A few comments on the tips: 1. I think an often overlooked thing is sure, you can set no boundaries for yourself, but I find it more interesting if you set yourself interesting (non-community defined) boundaries such as only being able to work with one gamemode. This challenges you to think about what song fits the gamemode you're using and you can figure out all sorts of interesting mechanics that help you discover your gameplay style with that gamemode 2. Avoiding conformity is something the GD community I feel like is struggling with in general. Just like it used to be that we had so many levels that a lot of them looked same-y, we're now going through that same phase but with layouts. I don't think that any video, no matter how popular, is going to be able to influence that at this stage, it's like making videos about generic levels Also I'm definitely not jealous of the fact that it took you six months to achieve double of what I've done in a year and a half... nope... not at all...
Great video tbh. Of course,general good gp is great, but I’m glad to know someone actually remembers that gp have our own styles and good gp isn’t only quality but its own uniqueness I may be 4 years late
thank you norkbork for this amazing video. i have always thought that creating tutorials which tells you what gameplay not to make and to make didnt help because it limited what you could build.
At least for me, I think the best advice for creating unique and original levels is to purposely make a level that’s not meant to make. As in not worrying whether or not it would get rated or if other’s would like it, since it’s then when you don’t feel pressure or limits and you allow yourself to create gameplay in ways you might never have thought of before.
The songs that work best for my GP style are Fast and Upbeat songs, as my GP style is Fast-Clicking / Tapping based, and you need to focus a lot. An example of a level that doesn't use my style of GP is Leyak, where once you learn the duals, you can pass them most of the time.
So I watched this in terms of trying to make a good, Harder or Insane layout for the level, and when I heard about Second Opinions, I feel like my friends give good input. One plays the game semi casually, one doesn't play, and the other one hunts demons. The one that doesn't play told me to "Play it in 16:9, and see if you can still easily sightread." I play in 4:3 btw. Few orbs were more offscreen than I wanted them to be.
I really didn't need to make too many layouts to make my gameplay better xD I just did a level focused on Gameplay and that's it :v Also even if PARA it's pretty creative with his Layouts, the enjoyability of his gameplay it's horrible, I think it's better having Enjoyability over Creativity even if it's pretty generic or maybe repetitive
the thing you said about music is the key point to make gameplay we like, in the series of know your editor by samyfying, he said that song is the basement of the gameplay, without it everything that comes after the song will fall apart, and i've seen this my self, when i've posted on my youtube channel that is Wyltoon all the differents gameplay i made, the one that were the most watch and liked was the one i've enjoyed the most building on. if you post on youtube regularly gameplay, the statistic can be for the majority of the time a very good indicator of if the peoples like what you've made.
Bruh, you deserve way more subs, for these type of tips and work you put into this, it’s just dumb how you don’t have a lot of subscribers. But you definitely got a subscriber +1. :D - A random person.
I thought myself the first tip and let me tell you ITS AMAZING. you know that you would dislike the gameplay when you can say "whatever i'll delete it" and then start a new one
Thanks for making this video. I knew most of these tips already, but you expanded upon those with more of your thoughts, examples, and information, which is unlike most other RU-vidrs!
I have been building for years and have two features. I've published probably 10 complete levels in my many years, but I've gone through HUNDREDS of unnamed levels. If your creativity is flowing, that momentum will get the level done. If it isn't meant to be, you'll know because you hit a block in creativity. Your first tip is so accurate and extremely important
I came across this in my recommendations, all though I already do all these things you said I can still appreciate people like you taking time out of your day and helping people understand what gameplay is. Now days people just say use jump pads and portals to sync layout add a few parts where you click and that’s your layout, I think that it is not very good the way people teach gameplay and I can agree with what you are saying, you really need to take time and build layouts how you imagine them and go from there don’t be afraid to make 10’s of unfinished layouts, all you are doing is learning what works and doesn’t work. This video is gonna help a lot of people :) Good luck on 3k I’m gonna have to join the server.
Thank you for this tutorial! I agree with everything you said in this tutorial, especially with boundaries. I feel like the community is setting up a list of rules to how to make good gameplay and deco. Like, the community will disapprove of certain aspects like invisible portals or outdated decoration (like 1.0 deco). Although, there are several levels with outdated deco and/or invisible portals and end up being really good. It’s like saying “you have to create what the community expects you to create”, and that just isn’t right at all! I mean, there should be some guidelines telling you what you should and shouldn’t do, and you should always ask for feedback if needed, but 95% of the time everything should be done your way and not what the community expects. If you don’t like the feedback you’re provided with, then that should be your decision. That’s how creating is more fun. I feel like the community is making level creating harder and less fun imo. Thank you for this video, because this definitely helps more than most GD tutorials.
Very spot on! I take inspirations but mostly copy some of the gameplay from other layout creator when i first joined in But yeah after making around 200+ unfinished layouts, i finally found my taste Anyways Can you do a review on the hardest upcoming extreme demons? Like giving your thoughts on them one by one (Ps there is a new hardest upcoming extreme demon called sentient space and it aims for no.1 in the demons list, its currently worked on but the layout should be 3 minutes long) Edit: Sentient space is harder than galaxy collapse and unnerfed orochi
I have been making a flow style layout, when all my other ones have been overly precise and technical and I actually have lots of motivation to finish it!
after many hours of creating garbage layouts that none will get to see the light of day, and watching this video, i have realized that i'm too braindead and i have no clue how i could ever stand a chance in making great gameplay, i've played for long enough to know what's good or bad when it comes to gameplay, though cooking something up yourself is a completely different ball game, i have a lot of ideas on the many levels i'd love to create for the community, as you said, visualizing the gameplay that plays out, however doing it all on your own, gameplay, structures and facing the behemoth that is decoration, very easy to give up and just drop pretty much everything. i suppose my perception holds me back, honestly i don't even know if i'll ever get to the point of truly putting in the work, not to mention i don't even know how to do all of it, especially since 2.2 is out, how to make so that i love my own level, what im good at is just polishing what exists, not making things come into existence :/
I’d have to disagree with the part about everyone being the same, the reason a lot of it looks the same is due to song expression, flow, and other aspects that have been perfected. Also, you can’t compare someone like Rryus to Jamscone, or Convie to Asu. It’s a lot more different at a higher level. Also, oh my god so many of these points needed to be said. Thank you for this video.
Because I make a lot of layouts, and they tend to be fast paced. The songs that tend to work best for me, are songs that have a good beat that makes you stomp your feet to the rhythm. (Electronic genres like Eurodance, Dance, Trance. And metal genres like Heavy Metal and Power Metal) I usually structure after I finish the gameplay, but some portions may have structure before that. I use a lot of different types of gameplay to see what fits with my style. My favorite gameplay creators is Chase, Alkali, Hinds and a few others (I've been compared to those 3 at different times, but I usually just do my own thing) I get valid opinions from friends and also sometimes from other people I may not know very well, but they may come with a less biased view.
One kind of controversial tip I wanna add is that if you want to become good at making gameplay of a higher difficulty, first you should master easier difficulties because those are more simple and offer an easier way of learning what's good and what isn't. It's also the best place to experiment with your structures as harder layouts take a lot longer to make in terms of raw time. I've noticed it myself and never saw others say this so I wanted to point it out to anyone who would need it.
I make ''simple'' gp and the people around me say it's not that good (the fact that it's simple) and that I shouldtry more ''complex'' things. Now I think that it's fine being as it is, and that the way to improve is to make more and better of those simple lay outs (also it's true that the vairety is cutting short and it sucks a lot). Also, loved this vid! Really needed something like this and not another (make this type of layout 'cause everyone makes it like that) type of thing.
really good video but i still can’t build something great i keep building new layouts and scrapping them 1 or 2 days after I can’t found a way to sync gameplay correctly while making it good without ruining it
Really cool video, I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did, but good stuff. I agree with quite a lot of these things. However, I don’t think you’re giving the gp community as much credit as I feel they deserve. I think that conformity is a problem with some people definitely, and sometimes I feel like I’m watching the most generic collab part ever, but I think a unique style comes with technical skill. Very talented people who have really refined and well executed gameplay are the ones that have unique styles. You can tell the difference between people like R3ul and Lagnugg and Convie and Sequex etc, even when their stuff is decorated. I don’t think that you need to be someone like th31 or para to be incredibly unique. I might’ve misinterpreted the length to that you felt this though. Also while there isn’t one way to make gameplay, I think there certainly some fundamentals that if people don’t do well or choose to ignore, the gameplay in terms of the quality of production is a lot worse. I don’t think you specifically disagreed with this, just thought it’d be worth mentioning.
My style of gameplay is to make fast-paced layouts with simple gameplay. The thing is: I don't make structures, I just put the blocks without structuring because I don't upload them. Also, my robot, spider, cube and ball gameplays are super easy but my ship and wave ones are off-puttingly hard. Anyways, (I don't want to spam, I just want feedback, don't take this wrong) if you guys could check out some of my videos to tell me how my gameplay style needs to improve, I would appreciate it! Also this video is from 7 months ago so I wrote this bible for nothing
Very nice video and very agreeable. A layout is a form of artistic expression. There are no real rules or techniques that will make a layout objectively good. As well as not feeling forced to finish a layout just like a drawing. You can creat just to practice or experiment. Although I disagree that gameplay has homogenised in recent times. It's been a thing since like forever. Look back at early 1.9 and every level was trying to look like ToE2 with ball mazes and invisible sawblade spam. And don't forget what happened after Nine Circles was created.
wish i had this vid years ago because this is basically perfect. as someone whose style is almost hardcoded to be pretty unoriginal (as the result of building way too many parts in a row lol), i often find that the best creators are the ones that are able to make gp differently from the way everyone else does, like using new mechanics or making the cleanest duals in ways that are entirely impossible in my own style. really needed this vid when i was a beginner. only thing i disagree with is triple six being a gameplay masterpiece smh
That's what I want to do and what I want it to be because the real reason I bought this gamme in the first place is that I want a decorated gameplay that could feel like some kind of artistic expression with a side of consistency. I made a lot of layouts and some aren't finished, some are horrible, and most importantly, I just learned how to use the color triggers and it came out as good but not too much. I was more insterested in making my favourite song levels, NONG levels, and most importantly, XL full song level that only JonathanGD and a hnadful of creatorrs can accomplish. I already publised at least 9 or 10 levels most of which are challenges. Some are full version of a specific song because this is also one of the reasons I got into this game. 2 xl levels, 1 meme level, and I plan on finishing some levels mostly revolving around melodic dubstep and some of my personal songs. This video along with listening to songs that felt like "I want to make a level out of it". whenevr I found a new song, I dream about the finished product because it felt good and syncs well and the theme would be based on how I felt on the song and what is the song about. Thanks to this video, one day or another, I shall be continuing creating levels and put some or a lot of effort on it to capture the dream of why I got into this game in the first place. Thank you for giving your opinion on this and now I can find a reason to put my dreams into a level
based video, I agree with literally everything here even though I've already figured out how to develop my style on my own, this really helps put things into perspective for me for the future
