The Next Big Thing

My first published level is doing well.  I have 24 people who have played it now, a couple of hearts, and a couple of thumbs up.  Some of those folks gave me some great feedback on how to make it better, but at this time I am unable to make any changes.  I downloaded LBP so I could trade in my disk towards buying LBP2.  Turns out that the content I got with the disk version (Game of the Year edition) is not available to me anymore unless I purchase it.  Oops!  Until I get around to buying those packs, I decided to begin work on my new level.

As with the last one, I am working out all of the technical parts first.  The first big one I am working on is a puzzle akin to the old “pipes” games.  The player needs to create an electrical path to two locations by rotating either a row or column of “path pieces”.  The first step was to find a way to rotate the pieces. 

My design is a 5x5 grid of wheels that will rotate in 1/4 turn increments.  Since each wheel has a single motor bolt, and that means I can only have one trigger per wheel.  I finally came up with a matching 5x5 grid of pistons and magnetic keys that activate either one row or one column of motors.

This grid is controlled by a 2-way switch and 5 buttons.  The buttons allow the player to select row/column 1-5 based on how the 2-way switch is set.

The switch allows the player to select either rows (lever to the left) or columns (lever to the right).  The switch moves a line of magnetic keys left and right to move them under the magnetic switches that are activated by the 5 buttons.

When the players activates the button, one of the two magnetic keys will activate a piston in the controller unit for the row or column selected.

The piston will push a magnetic switch towards the matching magnetic key until it activates.  The magnetic switch is connected to the pistons for all 5 row or column pistons in the “OR” switches that control each motor bolt in the 5x5 grid.  This will activate all 5 magnetic switches for a row or column, which start the matching motor bolts.  Since I am in the development stage, I just have them connected to a 5x5 grid of LED lights.

In this example the 2-way switch is set for row and I am standing on the 2nd button.  You can see that all lights in the 2nd row are lit.

In this example the 2-way switch is set for column and I am standing on the 2nd button. You can see that all lights in the 2nd column are lit.

Eventually, when I add the wheels, I will add the connections that briefly break the connection in the row/column control unit that will turn off the “OR” switch and stop the wheel rotation each 1/4 turn.

The controller units for each row/column are part of a multi-level elevator, with controls, designed by DEFCON01.  I just adapted it for this use.  If you want to see his elevator design, which will be used in this level and my first one when I can edit it again, just search for “DEFCON01 elevator” on YouTube.