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[Stevolutionary]

Looking at all the user created levels so far, they all seem to play it safe and stick pretty much within the parameters Team Meat have set, so I wanted to start a topic where people could put forward creative ideas that they haven't seen yet.

Here's a few of mine.

Hidden Bandage Girl - Why not put her in a hidden place like some warp zones are? Too many levels seem geared towards speedunning rather than the initial experience. Sure, once you know her location it'd make it less replayable, but why not put some effort into enhancing the initial experience? Or if the editor allows you to put two BGs in, why not put one in a faster, but more hidden location?
Multiple paths - Perfect for speedrunning. You can take a long but easy path, or a short but absurdly, horrifyingly difficult one.
Easy, but long level - Have one with minimal obstacles, but takes a minute or so to get through, and is geared around the fun experience, not the difficulty. Still speedrunnable.
Maze - Using portals or breakable blocks. Have one that takes memory of the path, not jump timing, in order to do a speedrun.
Joke levels - Super Meat Boy is frustrating. That is why it is so enjoyable. How about different types of frustration? Like a level with a key in a room, no way to die, but it takes 10 minutes of just standing there for the wall of locks to fully open? Or a level with 1000 keys, but only one that works?

In fact, i'd love to do an entire chapter called Patience, based entirely on joke levels. Here's 20 off the top of my head.

1) 1000 keys, only one works.
2) One key, takes 10 minutes to open the door.
3) Wait a minute for an elevator to arrive, then a 5 minute journey to the top of the level.
4) Bandage Girl is right next to you in a locked cage, but you must run along a flat plane for 3 minutes to get they key, then back again.
5) You're on top of a tower of 500 breakable blocks that you must let break to get to BG at the bottom. Very faint fans at either side blow you very slightly, so you can't just wait it out.
6) You must push a button 100 times to open the path.
7) Climb a tower 1000ft high with no obstacles.
8) 100 Bandage Girls, only on is real.
9) 100 identical magnets you must jump between to get to the end.
10) Homing missile lancher fires at you on a moving aerial platform, and it circles you as a result. You ust carry this missle on a minute long journey to a breakable wall to remove some blocks, then go back and repeat 5 times.
11) 10 identical portals, which each lead to 10 identical portals (making 100 in total) 10 return you to the start, 89 lead to death, 1 leads to BG.
12) 2 lasers, spaced just wide enough to fir two meat boys, move very slowly towards BG with you in the middle walking. Takes 5 minutes.
13) Minute long freefall level with 20 portals at random places, hitting which return you to the top to start again.
14) Completely black level apart from start and finish with no hazards. You must navigate purely by sound alone.
15) Jump over a laser that fires at easy to judge and regular intervals 100 times in a row before door opens
16) Moving platform goes on a 5 minute ride with a single block to jump over every minute.
17) Long walk along a conveyer belt pushing you in the wrong direction.
18) Grid of alternating tiles to fall down, but have to walk left-right-left-right constantly to make it down.
19) 100 fans to alternate between to make it to the top.
20) Bandage Girl is directly in front of you - just walk to get her.

Any feedback, or any more ideas?

[Patashu]

The reason why long levels (even easy ones) aren't made is because meat boy can die very abruptly and there are no check points.

Have you looked at the levels Free Climb/Sandy Mountain/Unholy Mountain? They're completely hazard-less and based around climbing upward doing difficult jumps.

[sh00takai]

Hidden Bandage Girl
Multiple paths
Easy, but long level
Maze
Joke levels

Heyy! Interesting ideas. The joke levels sound very fresh and I think they would bring a nice variation to the eternal speedrun madness.

To comment the list of ideas you mentioned, I hope you're happy to hear that I already planned levels in the NES chapter that include all these elements. The only downside is that I'm limited to the original tile layout, so I won't do miracles until I get to create free-of-that-sorta-bounds levels. To list a few:

* Hidden Bandage Girl
  - Bomberman

* Multiple paths
  - Batman & Contra (at least a few different choices to make along the route)
  - TMNT (see here: Stage map)

* Easy, but long level
  - Castlevania II (not that long, but without deadly hazards / obstacles until the last room)

* Maze
  - Bomberman again

* Joke level
  - Cheetah Men (weirdly acting saws, high speed flying platforms to throw you around etc.)
  - Rad Gravity (as far as I know, it's possible to set waypoints to bandage girl, and if that's possible in the retro / glitch tileset I'll make her escape from Meat Boy)

EDIT: P.S. With such a fresh ideas, I think it's now time for you to get the PC version.

[Stevolutionary]

Nice! Hugely looking forward to your NES project!  

Moving BG is a great idea! I was going to mention that in the original post, but I wasn't aware that was possible as I was sure someone would have done it by now if so.  

[sh00takai]

Nice! Hugely looking forward to your NES project! 

Great, I'm happy for that. I only wish I wasn't so busy all the time... I have only about 2-3 hours per night and I tend to test the levels pretty much. Oh well, have "patience".

[soad667]

Awesome ideas, more variety is always appreciated. Some more frustrating than others, but certainly unique. I would love to see some of them come true for sure.

[Zarkith]

Hidden Bandage Girl - ...if the editor allows you to put two BGs in, why not put one in a faster, but more hidden location?

It's possible.

Multiple paths - Perfect for speedrunning. You can take a long but easy path, or a short but absurdly, horrifyingly difficult one.

There are some levels with tricky shortcuts, but that's hardly the same. We need more levels like this.

Easy, but long level - Have one with minimal obstacles, but takes a minute or so to get through, and is geared around the fun experience, not the difficulty. Still speedrunnable.

A minute long level that isn't difficult? Good luck making that even remotely fun.

Maze - Using portals or breakable blocks. Have one that takes memory of the path, not jump timing, in order to do a speedrun.

That's a bad idea and you should feel bad.

[Stevolutionary]

Hidden Bandage Girl - ...if the editor allows you to put two BGs in, why not put one in a faster, but more hidden location?

It's possible.

Multiple paths - Perfect for speedrunning. You can take a long but easy path, or a short but absurdly, horrifyingly difficult one.

There are some levels with tricky shortcuts, but that's hardly the same. We need more levels like this.

Easy, but long level - Have one with minimal obstacles, but takes a minute or so to get through, and is geared around the fun experience, not the difficulty. Still speedrunnable.

A minute long level that isn't difficult? Good luck making that even remotely fun.

Maze - Using portals or breakable blocks. Have one that takes memory of the path, not jump timing, in order to do a speedrun.

That's a bad idea and you should feel bad.

In terms of the long level, why wouldn't it be fun? You can make it moderately challenging and involve some enjoyable mechanics without it being deadly, thus making you start again. RockLee's mountain climbing levels are a case in point.

Also, why is memorising a path a bad idea? Is that not the essense of a speedrun anyway? Memorising the optimum route? Now imagine it's a maze where you have to memorise 20 different turns, and at speed. That'd be challenging and fun.

[MegaMew]

Long levels could be fun.  Its no different than a level from Mario 3.  They were 1-2 minutes long and didn't have a checkpoint.  I'm pretty sure when he said 'easy' he meant when compared to the rest of the levels.  I really like all of these ideas except for the maze.  I feel like that would just piss me off.

[sh00takai]

Long levels could be fun.  Its no different than a level from Mario 3.  They were 1-2 minutes long and didn't have a checkpoint.  I'm pretty sure when he said 'easy' he meant when compared to the rest of the levels.  I really like all of these ideas except for the maze.  I feel like that would just piss me off.

Hahah, ok... Let's see how you react when I finish Bomberman's stage for the NES chapter...

[Stevolutionary]

Long levels could be fun.  Its no different than a level from Mario 3.  They were 1-2 minutes long and didn't have a checkpoint.  I'm pretty sure when he said 'easy' he meant when compared to the rest of the levels.

Pretty much this. Take a shot level that's hard and if you double the length, yet halve the difficulty, shouldn't you get around the same amount of fun and itt ake the same amount of tries roughly?

Just make some traditional platforming type levels. Still available to speedun, but more geared towards fun than difficulty.

For example bouncing off a ton of close knit repulsors to cover gaps would be enjoyable, but not really deadly. There's plenty of fun situations the editor would enable that people shy away from purely because they aren't incredibly deadly. It isn't essential to ape the main game and make your chapters solely revovle around being hard.