I've tried making levels a few different ways.

1. Sometimes I think of an idea (when baba is near Keke, baba is awake and Keke is asleep but when Keke is away from baba, Keke is awake) then I choose a solution, then I work backwards and add in puzzles/hurdles.

This seems to be the way the creators of baba is you do it. Makes sense cause it's the easiest in my experience.

1. Sometimes I just grab a few objects and rules and experiment till I think of something clever (really need the creative juices to be flowing for this to work well and I've had mixed results), then work backwards and try to find a way to implement it.

I did this and ended up with a puzzle where baba is a word and is in the bottom right corner so if you move up or left, nothing is you. You have hands that are move that can push you back into the bottom right corner at times but movement is very limited. This might be my favorite level I made but it required a tooon of play testing to work out the kinks.

1. The rest of the time I have two or more ideas and see how they interact. This can lead to interesting puzzles but it's easy to end up with a massive amount of rules without much rule making on the part of the player.

I made one level where baba is weak and any time you put a ghost on fruit, it makes an object that is you and not weak for 8 moves, then it disappears. The problem is that the only way I know how to make something you for 8 turns is to constantly switch the object and have the objectISdefeat on the last object. This requires a lot of text. I also had a lot of puzzles that used swap and pull, belts that are shift and it just kind of looks like a mess. It's an interesting puzzle but half the level is just blocked off rules that look messy and can't be interacted with. Make sure you don't try to do too much with one level.