Musings on our level culture, Summer 2017

[Simon]

Many design a loose level or two, but don't have the patience to design entire packs. Have an outlet for loose levels. A grab-bag pack that's not sorted or designed? A cloud like the level-sharing feature as in Super Mario Maker or Chuck's Challenge?

Improve the links between levels and replays. From a level, let the engine list all installed replays for that level. From a replay, get a quick way to go to that level in the singleplayer browser. Or extract the included level to somewhere, then immediately open the singleplayer browser on the extracted level. Replays and levels are so strongly associated, Lix's support is feeble. Consider design problems like different level versions when one replay solves all versions. Is level filename a good key?

Should levels always ship with proofs (= replays that solve the level, to guarantee solvability)? Should the proof be inside the level, or, as it is now, in an external file? Should the engine allow many intended solutions, and many slight variations of them, with logical formulas à la "solutions A and B must work, and at least one of C and D must work, and neither E or F may work because they're backroutes"?

Anything here would be long-term goals. We've got bigger more straightforward fish to fry.

-- Simon