So, you've finally spent either 5 minutes or 5 hours making your brand new Super Meat Boy level and are willing to share it to the world. Congratulations! Well, don't simply post your thread and level name and call it a night. Here's how you can do a good introduction and will make it so that people will want to play your levels.
1a. Post screenshots!Due to the sheer volume of
utter crap levels on Super Meat World, it's perfectly understandable that people may not want to play your levels. Since you didn't spend the effort posting pictures, chances are you didn't work too hard on your level neither. Posting pictures of your levels help people decide whether or not your map is worth playing and will immensely increase the chances that people will play your maps and have something good to say about them.
1b. How to take screenshotsThere are many ways to take screenshots.
Steam has an in-built screenshot feature that allow you to take pictures of the game by pressing F12. Then, you can put them up on your Steam account and people will be able to see them!
If you have Windows 7, there is this program which is called the Snipping Tool (it's found in Start Menu/All Programs/Accessories). Set it to capture the window, click on your Super Meat Boy window and you can save a picture of what's currently on the screen.
Otherwise, press Alt+Print Screen on your keyboard as your Super Meat Boy window is selected. This will save the graphical content of what's happening in it on your clipboard. Open Paint, choose Paste and there we go! Your screenshot is now in Paint and you can proceed to save it as a PNG.
If you choose the last two ways of taking screenshots, you'll have to upload it first.
IMGur is an excellent host for that matter; it's easy to use and there are multiple options for posting your pictures, including various sized thumbnails.
2. Talk about your levels!Having a description of your chapter can also help people find out what kind of gameplay your levels have. It doesn't need to be an essay or anything, but say something about it that go beyond "hies guyz i maed a levl for meat boy hold on i'll say what it is in the next post because i forgot", "oh yah it's called SHITTY SHIT SHIT plz play!!!!"
In short, just have a tiny bit of information about it, even if it's that you got the inspiration to make these levels by squeezing your cat until it makes funny noises. That would be very disturbing, but insightful in some weird way that I can't explain.
3. Please spend more than 5 minutes making your levelHere's a checklist of what you should go through before uploading your level.
- Did I forget to set up camera boundaries for this level?
- Am I having trouble beating my own level in the intent to upload it?
- Are my obstacles moving around the level in a weird way?
- Did I forgot to put in backgrounds in my level?
- Is the level hard because I can't see the obstacles or the way I have to take through the stage?
If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, chances are most likely that your level isn't quite ready to be uploaded yet. Bring it back some more to the drawing board.
4. Watch the official video tutorial before you upload anythingSure, a 1-hour tutorial tutorial might seem daunting to watch, but if you have any interest in making levels for this game, it's a must watch. Not only you'll learn how the editor work, but you'll also learn how to make your map pretty and fun to play. Try it, it'll be fun.
Help us help you all making Super Meat World a better place. Most of all, good luck on your levels. :)
Super Meat Boy
