Fixing the Pacing - Part 2

Last week I focused on making the 5th level and fixing small issues in all the previous levels. I want to introduce more meaningful decisions on where to go with the 5th level. Because of that, the level ended up being more complex and longer than all the previous ones, which necessitated a lot more iterations. By the end of the week I finished making a level design I’m proud of but it is still missing a bit of the blocking, which will be made early this week.

The main objective of the 5th map is to reinforce what the player has learned about the patrolling enemy and explore a bit more what can be done with this enemy type. The secondary objective is to give the player more freedom on how they explore the levels. Because of these two objectives, the game needed to be longer and a bit more complex. With the first prototype I managed to define some uses for the enemies that were interesting, escalated the difficulty well and had the general layout of the level. Still, I soon realized it wasn’t working so I stopped working on it,  took the good ideas from it and started the next prototype.

 With the second prototype I made a complete level that required the player to coordinate their movement with the routes of 2 enemies at the same time. First, they will find enemies that had patrol routes close to each other, and later enemies with intersecting patrol routes. The reasons I didn’t continue with this version of the level was that it felt too long and also, that it had a boring and long section of backtracking depending on what direction you took first. I iterated a lot with this version of the map, making different small changes but it just wasn’t working. So I killed my darling, took notes of what work and what didn’t, and started the next version.

The final version passed through a lot of small iterations, especially in the south area as this was the last part to be designed. When I started this level I knew I wanted a starting area that introduced in an easy to overcome manner, the concept of coordinating movement with 2 enemies. From the east-most part of this start area, the player must be able to see the objective. From experience on the previous build of the game, I knew players' attention was easily grabbed by any north route, given our camera setup, thus I made sure to use this to guide the player towards the recommended start route. This route had 2 increasingly harder sections with challenges evolving the idea of “two close enemy routes”, that was introduced in the start area. Between these 2 sections there was a short corridor where nothing happened to allow the player to breathe. At the end of the north route the player can see a closed road that cannot be opened from this side and a button that opens a door to the exit that they can interact with, even if they can’t access the exit yet. After that, the north section loops back to its start, so the player can continue to the south section.

Now, the south section was made to be the more challenging path. If the player took it after the north part, it would work as a continuation and culmination of the difficulty curve leading to the objective area. After finishing this area they would end up on the objective area already unlocked. On the other hand, if the player decided to take this route first it would present a much more difficult experience but it also would be shorter. The first part of the south section presents the player with 2 patrolling enemies with interconnected routes which are rather long, allowing the player space to make mistakes. After this the player opens a door that leads to a room with 2 roads, one they can’t take as it is blocked by a Single Directional Tile and one with 2 enemies with interconnected routes. The routes of these 2 enemies are shorter making getting through them a harder challenge. After overcoming those enemies the player can either go to the objective area as long as they have pressed the button in the north section, or open the door to the north section to reach the button that opens the objective area. To keep the shortest route back to the objective engaging, I made it so the enemies they need to overcome are harder on the way back.

As a whole, interconnecting the 2 areas was the hardest part. It either ended up being a very long trip filled with empty space or a messy set of corridors that didn’t make sense. Also, changing the connecting section also meant changing the areas a bit to make the level a whole have a nice length.

This week I will finish the white boxing and then proceed to work on the next level.