This week I thought I’d go into a bit more depth on the level and mechanic design that I’ve been doing over the last few weeks. This will be exploring in-depth the design ideas behind one of the new levels for Level Squared, the problems I’ve been looking to solve with the design, and the issues that I’ve been designing around before sending it off for play testing.
The level I’m going to be looking into will be Level 4.2 of the new progression. (You might remember from last week that there are five sub-levels within each larger area, so this is the second level within area 4).
This level is the second level where the player has gained the ability to cast projections themselves. They have been run through the mechanics of projecting, and had a chance to cast a few projections themselves. The idea behind this level is to give the player a lot more projections to play around with, the ability to project the same objects a number of times, and to get to know the limitations of projecting a little better.
But at the same time, they have not yet learned the ability to undo projections. This is a bit of a barrier. It means that I can’t make any of the projections vital or too precise. There’s a good chance that the player will project a block up against a wall where they won’t be able to interact with the block any further. If that block is required to proceed, then the level is blocked and the player would need to restart. I need to avoid that at all costs.
So those are our parameters. And here’s a view of the entire level:
The player will spawn at the bottom left, and exit through the green square at the top right.
You can see that the first thing that the player will encounter are the three yellow blocks that are blocking any further progress. The player has already encountered these types of blocks in previous levels, so knows that they are projectable. From the central platform, every projection angle will result in a successful projection. However, it is possible for the player to move to an extent that the projection is not possible. In this case the projection lines will turn red. As shown below:
(Eventually the camera will zoom out to show where the projected block will land. It’s just not up and running yet.)
Once the player jumps up to the next level, we can see that it is possible for the player to block their way forward with one of their projections. However, there is plenty of clear space beyond to ensure that the player can project again to clear the block out of the way. In addition, the player can climb to either the right or left side of the level, so even if they block one side and don’t think to project the block away, they can still climb on the opposite side.
And you can see that this is repeated the whole way up the level. The player always has multiple paths forward.
Another consideration is the use of the blocks as stairs.
The player can cast the yellow blocks into a set of stairs that they can use to leap up to the next area:
However, I have made sure that all of the jumps within the level are able to be completed by the character without requiring that the blocks be used as steps. If the player projects the blocks too far away, or into the wrong position, they will definitely still be able to progress. And if they cast the blocks into stairs, they can use those to jump up and feel very clever for solving the stair puzzle!
Finally here’s a video of me playing through the level in a pretty inefficient manner, making sure I can’t break or block anything and still make it all the way through – enjoy!