Yeah honestly that's almost the exact same thing for me. I spent almost all of my free time on SMBX from like 2011 to 2013, and would dip into it here and there from 2014 to 2018. After that though, I've just never been motivated to do anything with it. There's a part of me that really wants to remake some of my old circa 2012 content, and while I've done a *tiny* bit of that it's still hard to motivate myself to do it. I dunno. Kinda like you I've also been pursuing other interests, and of course, I'm not the middle schooler who no-lifed SMBX anymore. I think I'll always love the app, but, apart from occasionally revisiting some of my old levels and all that for nostalgia's sake, I don't know if ill make anything significant with it anymore either.I get the same as well.
A part of me keeps pulling me back into it, however as of this point I've pretty much lost my creative spark, as well as pursuing other interests. I do still sometimes pop back in and replay some older levels for old time's sake, but the thing is that my design ways have pretty much been stuck in 2012 and design standards have moved on a lot since then. Every time I try to make a level, it always ends up falling back into my old design habits and ends up being some kind of switch hunt or something, forcing me to ditch it and start over or make major changes to the level, or I run out of ideas and end up losing motivation to finish the level.
See, I already had alot of it figured out, at least in 1.3. I made some crazy stuff with it back in the day. I've given 2.0 a whirl as well, but by the time I tried that out my motivation to make stuff was already almost gone. I think that was part of the fun of it tbh, figuring out that I can do this and that and toying with it. But maybe you're not wrong. Maybe motivation would require locking in a bit at first, whether I want to or not.i've often found that motivation is a self-fulfilling prophecy. it doesn't come until you sketch some ideas, and the more you sketch, the more ideas come.
not all are good, and a lot really really suck. but the bad ones help in the process of discovering better ones.
when it comes to level design specifically, the magic spot is somewhere in the cross section of "fun to play (for you)" and "fun to design". so it's easy to just abandon a level when it's no longer fun to play or fun to design. i think that's fine, but when abandoning a level like that, it helps me to think about what part of the process was not fun, and then to try and make something next time that tries to address this issue.
for example in a chocolate contest level a few years ago i had a miserable time building it, and it was because there was so much programming i forced myself to do, and i ran out of ideas but i wanted the level to be longer. so i started making shorter levels that require less programming, and i have a lot more fun making those.
i think smbx can also be a bit overwhelming because there is so much you can do with it and most of the tools are kinda mid to start out with. i think if you get familiar with the tools over time (the enemies, the blocks, etc) it becomes a lot easier to come up with ideas. you don't have to be super amazing at using them to learn their strengths i think.
i think design being "retro" for this community isn't necessarily bad. like yeah having a 4 switch gate door was bad even back then but if you play some of TLTimelord/Augustus's levels, they feel very retro in that sense and are fun to play. Design what you find fun. If what you find fun is single-screen puzzle levels/troll levels/combat rooms against various enemy types, then make that! don't be beholden to what others think if the point is to be creative and have fun in your free time.
and to be honest im not happy with the "meta" style of design myself.. i don't have fun doing it so there is no point for me.
some cheat codes:
- if you run out of ideas, just end the level
- if a section of a level is not fun for you, get rid of it
- if a section of a level is fun for you but not commonly considered fun in the community, do it anyway
Statistics: Posted by KingBowser24 — Mon Jan 13, 2025 2:18 am
