Grinding creator points is something I have never been into. I've always spent months on my levels in order to make them the best they can be. However, for a video, I challenged myself to make a featured level in just three hours. As you can tell from the title of this article, I succeeded, and now I am going to share with you the things I learned while doing this challenge.

Farming Creator Points

From this challenge, I learned just how easy it is to farm creator points. Three hours spent on making a level is not long at all, so much so that it could possibly even be done on the daily. If I were to make a new level every day, I would be bringing in creator points like crazy. Assuming every level got featured, I could pass Viprin on the creators leaderboard after just 140 days!

Now that I know just how easy farming creator points is, I really hope people don't rush out levels for that sole purpose.

Originality

I planned out the style I was going to use prior to the challenge. I chose a generic early 2.1 style because I thought that would be quick to build. However, one thing I noticed was that I really wasn't building much faster with this style than any of my more original styles. With this, I came to the conclusion that — with exceptions for really complex styles — the time in building does not come from the style, but from the originality.

Coming up with ideas for a level is by far the most time consuming part of creating (at least for me). Given this, I wonder if I could have still beat the challenge if I made an original level — as long as I had all the ideas pre-planned. Who knows? Maybe I should try this in the future.

Copy + Paste

One thing I did a lot of was recycling. Whether it be small block designs, entire structures, or entire parts; I used many concepts multiple times throughout the level.

Now, I believe reusing designs in different ways is entirely acceptable. In most of my levels, you can probably spot a design that is used multiple times throughout. There is nothing wrong with this when done right, but it can be done wrong.

What I found surprising about this challenge was that despite recycling — or copy pasting — a lot of designs, it really isn't something I notice while playing the level unless I am specifically looking for it. Maybe it is because I used each recycled design in a different way, or maybe I am just crazy and it is entirely noticable by the community. Despite completely reusing an entire section with just a different gamemode, I did not recieve a single comment calling me out.

I think creators should refrain from reusing designs too much, but I think reusing designs in a different context is fine — although maybe not to the extent of what I did in this challenge.

Video

I made a video documenting my journey in doing this challenge — feel free to check it out!

Conclusion

As someone who generally doesn't understand grinding creator points, doing this challenge was a unique experience and I recommend others in a similar boat as myself to give it a try as well.