Polishing City 1 and Planning Level 7
Last week I worked on polishing the levels I had finished and started iterating ideas for level 7. The initial plan was to work exclusively on level 7 but after some reconsideration we decided to polish the 6 levels we already have. We decided on this for 3 reasons, the first one being that as time passed I realized some issues with the maps and I wanted to start fixing them. The second reason is to test how it feels to play several levels back to back. The third reason is to check that these levels which make up the first city, feel like a cohesive whole.
Before I sat down to fix the list of issues with the maps I wanted to play everything again to make sure I had everything ready in a list. Once that was done, I started with the most simple and impactful changes first, to the most complicated and specific changes last. The first change was to add white boxes to create the appearance of three dimensionality to the level, which I enter in more detail later in this entry. Then I proceeded to fix the location of some enemies and tile maps that were misplaced. Next, I started changing specific details in each map, from the routes of some enemies to better guide the player and lower difficulty, to changing specific tiles in a map.
When testing how it feels playing the levels back to back we very happily discovered that it is fun. They have the right length for the initial levels, neven feeling too long or too short. Also, the difficulty escalation is subtle enough to challenge the players without frustrating them. As we want this to be a relaxed experience for casual play it is important to maintain this feeling.
As we played the levels to see if they felt cohesive, both from a gameplay and aesthetic standpoint we realized an issue we needed to solve first. The levels are made entirely of planes at different heights, which is enough for me during early testing but has several drawbacks. First, it makes it difficult to understand what you are looking at first glance, it makes it harder to feel the three-dimensionality of the level and it doesn’t allow us to see how the blocking affects the level. Because of this, I started adding white boxes to the levels under the planes to give it a solid three-dimensional look. With just this change we were able to solve all 3 issues, with the levels now looking much better even without any real asset inside them. Luckily, we didn’t find any new issues with the maps when doing this, most of what we observed were things we already knew were issues. For example, in level 6 in the section to the east there are a set of stairs that need a thin meshes, else they block the vision of a good portion of the last area. Now, once this was done we were able to test the maps again and they feel cohesive. We expected this but it is better to be safe than sorry.
While working on all that I dedicated some time to try and iterate ideas for level 7. All of these ideas were done in drawings. I knew I wanted this level to feel different from the previous one to communicate that it is part of a different city. For this reason I avoided using the hollowed square and simple large rooms of previous levels. At the moment I’m still not sure what I want for level 7 but I think I’m getting closer to a concept for it and its city. I’m thinking of using several narrow corridors with several long rooms, like if a set of islands were connected by bridges. I still have to test it more to see if it is fun but this seems to be an interesting direction, especially for the new mechanic it is going to have. This mechanic consists of the “rotating directional tile”, working the same way as the “single directional tile” but changing the direction it is pointing towards every other tempo.
Finally, during friday I tested adding the first real meshes to the first level. Though I think I managed to create something that looks good and works with the level design it still needs more work. Mainly from the positioning of the assets but also from new assets that make sense, which are being worked on at the moment by my girlfriend.
Next week I’ll be doing even more polish, adding more assets to all existing levels and probably finishing level 7.
