Any and every single game, good or bad, "magnum opus" or "obvious beta", will always, ALWAYS, have one thing in common. What is it? They will always have a level of some sort in them. (And control. There's always going to be some kind of control over the flow of the game, be it direct or indirect.) Why point out something as painstakingly obvious as this? Because it's about, as the title of this should suggest, progress on the first level of Ito has FINALLY started. (It's been 6 months, if not even more, when I started this game. Mull over that for a second.)
As all good games should go, we start out the game within an icy cave. (Don't worry, there's nothing frictionless in here. Definately not by April, anyway.) From what I understand, a good, basic way to design a game level is to start out with the very basic of colors, and design the level with simple graphics. After all, graphics aren't a big key factor in games, most of the time. Just work with tiles that will have similar colors to what will be going into the final game, so that the feel will still be the same by the time you get to it.
As all good games should go, we start out the game within an icy cave. (Don't worry, there's nothing frictionless in here. Definately not by April, anyway.) From what I understand, a good, basic way to design a game level is to start out with the very basic of colors, and design the level with simple graphics. After all, graphics aren't a big key factor in games, most of the time. Just work with tiles that will have similar colors to what will be going into the final game, so that the feel will still be the same by the time you get to it.
Believe me, making levels are in of themselves enough complexity to drive an untrained man mad. Without guidance, the level will change VERY frequently on you. A good tip to avoid that is to make a rough drawing of what the level SHOULD look like. And another rough sketch if that one doesn't please you. 20 goto 10. Keep going until you finally get a flow that looks like it would work. And then have someone else play that level for you, so that you can have a good viewpoint on how that level works.