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Bullet Hero
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The order of work

First the track, the fps, the beat map and the markers, then a skeleton of plain shapes and its playtest. Decoration, the theme and effects come last

The steps go from the most expensive to the cheapest. The earlier a step, the more it costs to redo once everything is built on it

The foundation

  1. The finished track. Converted, normalised, trimmed. Everything else is measured from it. Replacing the track later shifts every frame of the level
  2. FPS and level length. Both can be changed, but the fps is the expensive one: after a change every keyframe is recomputed. The default is 60, and there is usually no reason to change it
  3. The beat map. Segments, tempo, offset, time signature. While the beat map is wrong, nothing snaps to the beats correctly. Everything placed before it will have to be moved later
  4. Markers on the structure. Intro, verse, chorus, break, drop, outro. It is ten minutes of work, and the markers are visible on every timeline

The skeleton and its playtest

  1. The skeleton. The main patterns in plain shapes. No decoration, no theme, no effects
  2. Playtest the skeleton. Before decoration: once a section is decorated, you will not want to delete it
Caution

The skeleton is the stage where the level is actually designed. And it is the stage most often skipped. A skeleton that is not fun to play will not become fun through decoration. It will become a decorated level that is not fun to play

Filling it out

  1. Content. Fill out the patterns and add the objects that so far were only implied
  2. Themes and colour. From the very start, set colours as references to the theme, not as fixed values
  3. Effects and post-processing. Last. They are the easiest to overdo, and they are hard to judge while the level is still changing
  4. Metadata. Name, description, authors, age rating. Fill in a resource's card as soon as you add the resource, not at this step

Three habits that save work

The same holds whether you build the level or the AI assistant does:

  • Anything that repeats is a prefab. Edit the template once and every copy follows - Reuse: prefabs, copying, generators
  • An outline no built-in shape gives is a level shape, drawn in the shape editor or given by the AI as a polygon. It draws and hits as one object, unlike a stack of rectangles
  • Use the whole 16:9 frame. A big empty margin is screen the player sees and the level wastes. Keep danger off the very edge, decoration may reach it - Composition and the camera

What is cheap and what is expensive to change

Cheap to change at the end: colours through the theme, decoration, post-processing, the level's description

Expensive: the fps, the track, the beat map and the hierarchy

Warning

Changing an object's parent changes its transform, lifetime and draw order at once. That is why restructuring a finished level rarely takes just one edit

Save at every step. What autosave and undo cover - Not losing your work

Next: Reuse: prefabs, copying, generators, Not losing your work