Hands-on Boom Blox Create Mode

May 1, 2008

If you've been following Wii lately, you've undoubtedly been pulled into the recently uprising Boom Blox hype. We've been covering the game for quite a while, starting with the first unveiling that film legend Steven Spielberg would be teaming up with EA to create an odd sandbox world based on building and toppling blocks, have gone hands-on with the game multiple times, and have talked openly about it on our own Nintendo Voice Chat Podcast. If you've done your homework you've seen footage of the characters in motion, the general gameplay, and the Jenga-like inspiration for the game, but Boom Blox is about both creation as well as destruction, and details on the level editor itself have been pretty sparse.

That changes today though.

We've had a chance to put the game through its paces for quite some time, meddling with the level editor and creating our own stages and environments, and we're now ready for a little show and tell. Featured today is not only a tutorial from EA on how to use the creation tools in Boom Blox, but also a few videos of us tinkering with it as well. You'll see the high points, the areas that could use improvement, and watch us build from the beginning of a level to the very end. After all, creation is supposed to be half the Boom Blox experience, so why not let you in on the fun?

The Level Editor

Boom Blox has an extremely simple concept, but the sheer amount of depth can be pretty overwhelming. EA wanted to keep the game as simple and charming as possible, while being intuitive and deep at the same time, and for the most part we'd say the level editor is a prime example of that. It's available from the very beginning of the game, but you'll unlock different areas to work in as you play the main modes. Everything from new characters, level settings, and types of objects to throw in-game are unlocked as you play, but the editor has all block types and other options available right away, so in an instant it becomes more inviting than something like the Smash Bros. editor, where a large amount of objects had to first be unlocked to make more complex and entertaining arenas.

For the most part the editor is very simple to use, all based around the Wii-mote's cursor and grid playfield. You can manipulate the camera with the B trigger (hold and move the cursor, just like in the main game), and also zoom in and out with the C and Z buttons, pan the camera with the analog stick, and raise/lower your camera height with the 1 and 2 buttons on the remote. If at any time you want to undo your last action, hit the minus button. The editor has two expandable menu columns, with the one across the left handling all types of blocks, characters, and ball types, with the right focusing on manipulation of these items. That includes things like a select tool, eraser, height leveler, copy cursor, and scale tool.

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Placing objects is simple, but you'll need to learn the camera controls first, as your precision in creating is based on how steady you can hold your hand, and how zoomed in you are on the field itself. A few times we'd try to grab an edge of a block to scale it (that tool is easily the best in the bunch, as you literally just click and drag to morph blocks), but had to force ourselves to zoom in to get a better aim at the edge itself. Just like the main game though, once you get a feel for how to look at the blocks, you'll have little problem interacting with them.

The editor has a smart system based on what the "floor" of the level is, so if you're dragging a block across the ground and want to lift it onto a raised stack of bricks, it'll automatically hop up. For the most part, this works fine, but as you get more complex in your shapes it'll be a bit tougher to thread the needle and have the system raise/lower the selected shape on the fly, or learn exactly how to move blocks exactly where you want them. That's where the height tool comes in. By clicking and dragging the ground itself, you can change the actual level of floor you're working on, allowing you to place blocks in mid-air or work on a specific level of height. Of course you'll need to use the right blocks in each situation, as many of them follow regular gravity rules. We'll come back to that in one of our level comments though.

It takes some getting used to, but the Boom Blox editor is a huge part of what makes the experience fun, and it provides near-endless depth to the package. Once you build a level you can add point values to blocks or change the properties via the "paint" tool, and then set rules depending on if the level is single player, multiplayer, time based, point based, or limited on how many throws the player gets. Once you're done (or mid-creation) you can launch the level and play it, and then save, share, and swap levels with friends wirelessly. Good call, EA.

And now, on to the levels themselves.

Level 1: Bozonia

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In this first level we experimented with a classic tower design, but wanted to make a two player points-based game out of it. Since doing a regular tower is extremely basic - and already included in single and multiplayer play - we decided to increase the amount of points in each section of it, adding in some negative or penalty points across the top as well. Using the copy tool the towers were simple to create and duplicate, but an early mistake at the beginning of editing had us adding five point block on the base of each tower. Since point blocks disappear when they hit the ground, we had to remove them and re-build part of the level. Aside from that, it was a breeze, and took us about 10 mins total to create this basic, fun multiplayer level. It could use more variation in points though, as it's all fives and a few -10 bricks.

Level 2: Trial and Error

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Things don't always go as planned, and that's shown off in great lengths in our "Trial and Error" video. We wanted to show of the behaviors of the animals in Boom Blox, specifically the ball-throwing Dirk, and bomb-detonating Buckley. The idea was for them to face off, with Dirk throwing balls at the army of Duckley blox, but some tower malfunctions kept us from really getting the result we wanted. We've done this one a few times previously, but this specific level shows how physics can trip up careless designers. We changed the amount of characters, the layout of the towers, and then had to stabilize them to make sure Dirk didn't fall to his death. This level did run a bit slow due to a lot of AI usage, but it's a funny little "skit" of sorts. Not really a legit level by any means.

Level 3: Top Heavy

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Top Heavy was a fun one, as we're sure you can tell from the creation. We started out with a tower, checked to make sure everything was stable in the preview mode, and then just ran with it Originally there were some issues with the 50 block, and we wanted it to slide down and score if someone toppled the tower, rather than allowing people to just snipe at the huge block itself. Once we got it working for the most part, we had a whole mass of level still to play with, so we made it symmetrical, adding even more point possibilities in the middle with a pyramid of 50 pointers. We had some good runs with this level in multiplayer, but as you can see by the end of the clip, the 50 blocks aren't always as simple to score as we thought they would be. It's a decent first run, but needs some improvement. This is also a level where we had a chance to experiment with the height tool. For the most part it worked great, though it takes some serious pre-planning if you want to get it right the first time; gravity is a cruel, cruel thing.

Level 4: Random Insanity

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In this final video, we tried a few random setups with characters and structures to play around with the world a bit. The editor itself doesn't' need to be used just to make serious levels or puzzles for other players; sometimes it's fun just to see what you can do with the world itself. Mostly it ends up boiling down to sheep harassment, but it's all good fun. Sure it's a bit crude and simple, but sometimes you just want to huck a baseball at one of those critters and after a few hours of level editing, that's just what the doctor ordered in this one. Enjoy.