hello tutancmon,
indeed, that's the way how i often develope: setting up a local server and running several clients; some of same machine as server, some of my other machines.
btw: a colorBits value of 16 reduces the visual resolution. did you try to use 32 bit for colors?
please note that using the editor and designing a new level needs also an appropriate physics setup in order to be able to walk around in level and have collision detections taking effect. setting up the physics can be a little tricky. so i would suggest that you use the island level for your experiment basis. i will explain later how to setup the physics and can assist you. if you still are interested in setting up physics then take look at this forum thread.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7cheers
boto