Week 4 - Last Week of Gameplay Design
At the end of last week I decided that week 4 was going to be my last week working on mechanics. Whatever I managed to define was going to be everything I will use in the game. By Friday I managed to do just that.
To achieve defining all the core game mechanics I focused on making a last level that used them all. This took me 3 different iterations. Of these, 2 were complete level ideas and 1 I ended early.
The first iteration was an evolution of the level I designed last week. I used the same general layout with a medium-tall element blocking the player view without blocking the goal from the starting point. With this iteration I learned the game could be expanded more with more game elements that added interesting exploration possibilities without requiring more programming. Still I felt I had fewer tools to design diverse and interesting levels.
For the second iteration I attempted a new level layout that used a new enemy type. This new enemy would walk around following a predefined road. I wanted to test how having to keep in mind a predictable enemy that changed position would affect how the player traversed the same road on the way in and on the way out. I got this idea after the feedback I received from my mentor about how my level design from last week used backtracking in a boring way. After almost a day working on this idea I realized how little I had learned with this and how few ideas this level actually let me test. For this reason I decided to stop and start a new bigger level that used the cool ideas I developed with this 2nd iteration.
I started the 3rd iteration with the concept of making a circular level that allowed the player to reach the same place multiple ways. I realized I hadn’t paid much attention to my game pillar of making interconnected levels and this was my attempt on exploring that pillar. After the general layout was defined I decided to break the level into smaller sections and ask myself how to access each of these sections and what prerequisites some of these may have. In the end I clearly defined 7 sections and 1 that I may break down more next week. During this process I ended up adding a section based on the 2nd Iteration.
Though the level is not finished I managed to define all the elements I will use in it. I was very tempted to add many features that allowed the player to interact with the world and enemies but chose not to in the end. My final list of new features is the roaming enemy, a sleepy enemy and locks that require multiple keys. I chose these as these allow me to create many different kinds of challenges for the player when used together. Also, they are not complex to teach which I need to do by designing levels and given the little time I have left, is an important factor to keep in mind.
This week was a bit nerve wracking for me as I felt a bit stuck during the middle of the week. I manage to progress by taking small breaks every time I felt overwhelmed and then come back to try new things. I feel that the last 2 weeks I may have been too fearful of feature creep and instead stayed with the same features without changing them even though I still was in the prototype phase. In future projects I will keep this in mind and prototype faster and with less fear.
Next week I will keep working on the paper prototype of the last level and attempt to implement it in the engine. If I have time I also want to start another level that will teached one of the advanced mechanics used in the last level.
