Improving Levels 5 and 6

Last week I worked on improving the levels 5 and 6 based on the feedback we received during the latest tests. From my partner's side, she updated the tilemap to now show the road the character can take and also worked on updating the color palette.

For the 5th level 2 main changes to improve the level.First,I  made it so the road to the south section is far more visible. To achieve this I placed the steps to this section on the same horizontal position and also made a bridge that leads to the south section from the end of the north section. This bridge has single directional tiles pointing towards the south direction which works to tell the player that there is something in that direction.

The second change was to modify the blocking on the road to the exit. Previously it was too large to the point of even blocking a large part of the exit road when you were right next to it. Now it serves to block the exit road and all extra information the player doesn’t need when you are far away but after crossing a threshold the player can clearly see the exit road marked. This also required making the exit point itself taller and making the light coming from it illuminate more clearly.

In the case of the 6th level there were also 2 main changes that were made. The first one was changing the final challenge of the first section as it was an unwanted spike in difficulty. To achieve this I made several changes, first I changed the position of the door so the players can use the ½ tempo tile in the way they most likely have been using it so far, in a straight line. Next, I made the initial area longer to give the player more space to get used to the new movement speed of the new tiles. Also, I made the first enemy route much longer to give the player more leeway. Before the need to use the new tiles while pressing a button, avoiding an enemy in a short route and doing a curve; it was just too much. Because of this change in the initial area I needed to do some changes to the section that connected it to the next area. These changes created some extra space that I used to place another enemy so the player can reinforce what they just learnt.

The other change was more simple, add more space between the final area and the second area. They were too close, causing some issues for the tilling so I made the change. This required elongating the bridge that connects the third area with the final area but that ended up being for the best as it gave me the opportunity to create a better transitional road.

My partner's work with the tilemap helped a lot with improving the game as the changes she has made fill the empty in the map, marking the walkable areas just not making points of interest. This way the player can know for sure what far away areas they can go to without causing noise for the player.

This week we will keep working on making the levels better while also working on replacing the last 2 levels.