Week 1 of the beta for me was spent developing two new levels. With the decision made to focus on the Wild West world, I developed an initial level (as a tutorial) that introduces jumping, movement, and button presses. This level will take maximum 30s - 1 minute for an experienced player, and is intended to serve as a very small introduction before players jump into the rest of the game. The second level I created was a mostly falling-platform level, entitled ‘Falling Down’. This level serves mostly as an introduction to the concept of falling platforms, and includes several different arrangements of these, including objects where the player is pushed off, when they have to jump from platform to platform, and where players have to move around the outside of a building, to climb to the top. I see this level as a natural escalation of the challenge of the game, so it is not intended to be approached after the previously mentioned tutorial level. With ‘Falling Down’, I wanted to experiment more with creating interesting platforming environments, and understanding the limits of the character. A secondary goal was to make a level a bit bigger than the previous levels, as I had not yet made a level that was actually large. The level took about 3 days total to create, - including drawing, implementation, and testing. In terms of components, it includes falling platforms, pushing blocks, a small vertical platforming section, repeated timed jumps, circular platforming, and a small amount of navigation in a larger area, that forces the player to jump between pillar-oriented platforms. The team’s response to the level was pretty positive again, but with a number of required changes to make as well. In the previous level that I created for the demo, the pushing blocks often infuriated players because of the timing. Mistiming the blocks meant that the level’s flow was much worse. I retooled how the pushing blocks worked, to allow them to chain off each other. I also created a trigger area to make sure that the blocks only start moving when the player gets close. This means that if the player wants to sprint through the level, it is facilitated by the design. Enabling fast runs means that I am able to make sure that everything can flow properly and feel really smooth to play. The level design sections I have experimented with thus far in other levels have been put in here (pushing blocks, jumping around a tower, etc.) and there are no grappling hooks. Next week I will go back and test the level, to make sure that things like jump spacing or timing are accurate. This level will most likely be the third or fourth level, and include mechanics and objectives for the player that will not be possible without first getting used to the grappling and jumping. I am happy with the current focus of the level, however it will require some tuning before I move on to the next level, as well as mechanical implementation (it requires buttons, as well as doors and switches) before the level can be completed aesthetically.
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September 2017
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