After the initial sketches, the main game design started once I received the finished terrain design from Max, and I had finished tweaking the character jump height, distance and crouch.
For creating the different jumping and platforming areas I created a block with the height on the standard jump and got a good idea of the distance, this helped me to block out anything I needed to. The main areas were an area of pillars near the beginning, a big tower to climb up, and any other platforms that you needed to use to make it to the end of the level.
Unfortuanately I did not have time to supply any screen shots of these, however you can see them in the game and the build that I have supplied.
To guide the character through the level we discussed using lights to draw the player's eye. However before this was implemented I used the collectible to a similar effect. We wanted to give the player a reason to explore the open world, so I placed in the scene 10 medallions (later 12) for them to collect, which they would need to win the game, this also ensure they experience most of the the game has to offer. I also added 100 orbs as a bonus collectible, if the player collects all of these the message at the end changes, saying that they have completed the game, but also gives you a super jump and access to a secret area, for a bit of extra fun.
After receiving feedback from various tutors and people within the industry, it gave more ideas as to how to implement the power up masks into the game play. One things we did, especially with the wind mask, was to make short cuts accessible so you can get around the level quicker. This played in to the fact that once the player has a certain power up they can go back to areas they have already visited to and access new parts of the map to get any collectible they still need. We used the fire mask web burning mechanic to hide medallion behind web, and where you get the fire mask, there is an area you need to return to with cloud platforms, leading to another medallion, which you need the wind mask to reach.
Later on I realised that, aside from the crouch jump, I hadn't implemented the crouch into any of the game play, so I had a think about where that could be put. I placed the mechanic in a few areas which required you to crouch to progress, I also included a new area with a medallion, and to get to the medallion it required you to jump and crouch in the air to fit through a gap.
The secret area I mentioned was a place high up where you can land on an invisible collider to get to a box that you can see floating off of the main terrain.
I feel like overall I did not did a bad job at designing the game, but more importantly I learnt a lot. About making the game replay-able, getting the player to backtrack and rediscover things, and to make platforming areas not too difficult, but still fun and a challenge. It was a good thinking about how to use the masks and where to put them, and how simply putting them in different places can make the design fall short (there was time where instead of jumping across some platform, you could just walk across the lava with the fire mask to reach the other side).
It was the technical stuff, like placing the platforms in very specific places that I really got into. During the last few days of the project if I saw someone replacing any of the platforms or moving that I would be weary that they would put them very slightly in the wrong place and then it would ruin the challenge slightly, however as this was quite last minute it was unavoidable, and luckily I felt that overall level design was still fun, even if a few jumps are a bit easier.
For creating the different jumping and platforming areas I created a block with the height on the standard jump and got a good idea of the distance, this helped me to block out anything I needed to. The main areas were an area of pillars near the beginning, a big tower to climb up, and any other platforms that you needed to use to make it to the end of the level.
Unfortuanately I did not have time to supply any screen shots of these, however you can see them in the game and the build that I have supplied.
To guide the character through the level we discussed using lights to draw the player's eye. However before this was implemented I used the collectible to a similar effect. We wanted to give the player a reason to explore the open world, so I placed in the scene 10 medallions (later 12) for them to collect, which they would need to win the game, this also ensure they experience most of the the game has to offer. I also added 100 orbs as a bonus collectible, if the player collects all of these the message at the end changes, saying that they have completed the game, but also gives you a super jump and access to a secret area, for a bit of extra fun.
After receiving feedback from various tutors and people within the industry, it gave more ideas as to how to implement the power up masks into the game play. One things we did, especially with the wind mask, was to make short cuts accessible so you can get around the level quicker. This played in to the fact that once the player has a certain power up they can go back to areas they have already visited to and access new parts of the map to get any collectible they still need. We used the fire mask web burning mechanic to hide medallion behind web, and where you get the fire mask, there is an area you need to return to with cloud platforms, leading to another medallion, which you need the wind mask to reach.
Later on I realised that, aside from the crouch jump, I hadn't implemented the crouch into any of the game play, so I had a think about where that could be put. I placed the mechanic in a few areas which required you to crouch to progress, I also included a new area with a medallion, and to get to the medallion it required you to jump and crouch in the air to fit through a gap.
The secret area I mentioned was a place high up where you can land on an invisible collider to get to a box that you can see floating off of the main terrain.
I feel like overall I did not did a bad job at designing the game, but more importantly I learnt a lot. About making the game replay-able, getting the player to backtrack and rediscover things, and to make platforming areas not too difficult, but still fun and a challenge. It was a good thinking about how to use the masks and where to put them, and how simply putting them in different places can make the design fall short (there was time where instead of jumping across some platform, you could just walk across the lava with the fire mask to reach the other side).
It was the technical stuff, like placing the platforms in very specific places that I really got into. During the last few days of the project if I saw someone replacing any of the platforms or moving that I would be weary that they would put them very slightly in the wrong place and then it would ruin the challenge slightly, however as this was quite last minute it was unavoidable, and luckily I felt that overall level design was still fun, even if a few jumps are a bit easier.
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