CAGD 270 Level Design

This page is for CAGD 270 level design.

3D Game Level 2v1 Playtest Feedback
This play test session went about the same as the last few play test sessions. Things went pretty well but there were a few small hitches. I made quite a few improvements over my previous level design. The first major improvement I made was that I followed a map I made to better plan my level layout. Another improvement I made was using a single acid plane for the whole level. This massively simplified the acid pool making process which was particularly helpful due to the sheer number I was using in the level. I once again resorted to the making of a large pseudo-maze structure for the level. Though like a regular maze there was a few points where one could easily get lost. The level has a somewhat interesting topography with different levels of elevation in different parts of the level. Another useful improvement was adding more checkpoints throughout the level which was most definitely needed due to difficulty increase over the previous level design. One of the best improvements I made in this level was largely removing the issue of the player bypassing the level by jumping over the walls. I removed this issue by creating a barrier plane above the level. It took some testing on my part to find the right height above the level to not restrict the player while keeping them from breaking the level too easily. My personal favorite improvement was figuring out how to successfully implementing a text-box in the level. This allowed me to properly demonstrate to the player that the level has been completed. I also successfully implemented a finale mini-boss to the end of the level as a capstone challenge for the player. The level difficulty is not quite high enough yet but it is pretty good so far as the player is swarmed but not quite overwhelmed by the chompers and spitters. In this iteration of the level the chompers and spitters are largely grouped in small mob packs throughout the level so the player must constantly confront them. The player was able to successfully navigate the level with only one death and found the level pleasantly enjoyable. Despite a few flaws which will detailed later the level was a success in my eyes.

Not everything was exactly perfect in this play test session and there were a few things that did not go great or will need to be changed in the future. One of the elements I want to improve on in future is adding more switches and doors. Another element that did not go quite as planned was the maze-like nature of the level leading to genuine confusion of the player and some accidental backtracking. Something that did not pan out quite as expected was the acid pools being only a very minor obstacle. This will need to be changed by making them larger and require more platforming to safely cross. The Mini-boss did not turn out as hard as I would like but I have to be careful to not make it to hard. The Mini-boss melted to a few hits from the player in the current iteration so the health total will need to be increased a fair amount to compensate. This is especially important as the mini-boss is just a chomper that is five times taller, wider, and longer. The Mini-boss chomper also only has the standard chomper attack which is not much of a threat. Perhaps the Mini-boss could be a spitter in future iterations. The level terrain was somewhat uninspired on my part which I will need to fix in future. I want to add more environmental detail like in the first level like towers and arches and the like. These flaws will need to addressed to some extent but I am pretty happy with how the level turned out.

3D Game Level 1v2 Playtest Feedback
Things went quite nicely this time around. I learned a lot since the last play test session on the previous iteration of my first 3D unity level. The level played a lot more smoothly in regards to combat this time around versus the last play test session. The biggest change was that I had correctly allowed the enemies to path in the level. This made the level significantly more challenging in spots and the player can easily be killed at least once or twice in the new version of the level. This makes the level have an actual bit of challenge while still being very easy. Another good addition to the level was adding a door and switch to the end of the level to better have a good end to the level. The switch is quite intuitive so no messages are needed. One of my favorite realizations was that my level had unwittingly been designed in a manner that was an approximation of the Doom's Horseshoe level design idea. My level is a spiral that starts at the center and winds about that from that point allowing the player to view much of the level quite easily by jumping. The end is not readily visible in the current version of the level from the center of the level which does not fit the Doom's Horseshoe idea as well as it could but having an unintentional approximation of this very cool level design tool is still fun. The level's architecture is still good and does not need many notable improvements. Another new addition to the level was the addition of boundary wall around the level. This helps as there are several areas of the level which are flush with the edge of the map. Ultimately this iteration of the level has some solid improvements and for a second level iteration within a new engine is still satisfactory.

While there are many improvements to the already solid first iteration of the level there are still some notable issues which will need fixing or at the very least some consideration in future 3D level designs I will do. The most glaring still existing issue is that some of the small blocks do not have proper collision with the player making them useless in the current version of the level. This makes some of the walls have bizarre collision with the player and making small obstacles able to be walked right through like a ghost. Another less glaring but still problematic issue is that the walls are still not tall enough to avoid being jumped over easily. A part of this problem is the collision issues making walls hard to convincingly stack up high. Another issue with the wall height problem is that the walls would be less aesthetically pleasing if the were significantly higher. Hopefully another solution can be found to this issue for future level design. The newest issue with the level is the sudden difficulty spike in comparison to the first iteration the level. Due to path-finding issues for enemies in the first level there were a very large number of enemies. Once the path-finding issue was resolved suddenly the sheer number of enemies presented a serious threat. There are several areas in the level where large numbers of chompers will try to swarm the player. The spitters are also more of nuisance than before as their fleeing ability is very annoying due to the player's attack ability slowing them down a great deal. This can easily lead to the player taking damage before they can catch up with the spitter and slay them. On the other hand sometimes the player can overshoot and clip into the enemy and take damage that way. Either way the enemies will need to be more carefully placed in future levels using this game engine. Despite these flaws I am still largely happy with this new level iteration.

3D Game Level 1v1 Playtest Feedback
Things went surprisingly well in this latest play test session. I had never touched Unity engine prior to this assignment and my lack of experience did not cause too many issues for my level design. I particularly like the simplicity of the 3D game kit and its ease of use. There were some hurdles and a great deal of trial and error but most things largely turned out well. I particularly liked how well the aesthetic of a ruined jungle fortress/city was presented despite the absence of color and texture. The building blocks in the 3D game kit were great fun to work with and I created some cool structures using them. My favorite structure was the bridge I created over the level which extends from the center of the map to the right edge. This was created in order to creatively solve an issue I came across when making the level. I originally wanted to have the start point be in the bottom left corner of the level map but I could not figure out how to do that at the time. So I solved this issue by changing the wall layout of the level so the player starts in the middle and navigates the level's maze. The bridge was created as a world-building prop to indicate how the player entered the ruins from above and fell into the ruins due to the decrepit nature of the bridge structure. I also created a structure of parallel walls on top of a hill near the end of the level which was designed to be reminiscent of real world fortress cities where the walls wind about forcing attackers to attack against a hail of missiles in order to assault the defenders of the fortress. Another element that was a great success was that this level was very easy and appropriate for a tutorial level. Ultimately for a first iteration of a level within a completely new system to me it turned out quite nicely.

Not everything went quite so smoothly and there were and are quite a few kinks to work out before the level is really good. The biggest issue was that I was unable to find an obvious way to get the enemies to move to attack the players. They simply squirmed about on the ground but never actually moved. This was a setback but I was not taken too far aback and used the enemies as roadblocks largely but this will need to be fixed in future. The ranged enemies worked quite well as stationary turrets shooting at the player and were slightly more challenging but not really that challenging to face. Ultimately this element worked out fine for the moment but will need to be fixed in some manner or another in future iterations of this level. One solution might be making the enemies larger so the player has to attack them. This would work if the walls were tall enough to stop the player from breaking the level very easily. The walls in most places were very easily scaled by a single jump. I will need to make them much higher or somehow reduce the players jump height in order to successfully balance the level appropriately. Another element related to the walls that needs fixing but is more esoteric in nature is collision issues related to the smaller sized blocks. At the moment these blocks do not collide properly with the player and can be walked through. This reduces the usefulness of the jump ability as small obstacles that are able to jumped over would be great for teaching the player how to use their jump. The last small issue was that there was no obvious way I could find to have a level end. I improvised by putting a crystal at the end to mark it to some extent. I will need to learn more about the program and there is probably some easy solution or at least a way to put some writing saying congratulations or something. Ultimately I have much more to learn and improve in and look forward to future development.

2D Megaman Level 2 Playtest Feedback
Things went pretty well in this most recent play test session. I got in a bit of good play testing and things turned out surprisingly well. The level had a good sense of escalation with no major difficulty spikes which makes for a much more fun level. The difficulty level of this level turned out to be surprisingly balanced and close enough towards easy. The level was not a cake-walk however and still had a decent amount of challenge. The level had a decent aesthetic but I need to look for more blocks to better match the jungle look the level is supposed to go for. I ended up using the knight-man blocks as they were an interesting green color. They also led to my favorite aesthetic element with two knight-man blocks on top of each other with spikes on the sides and bottom of these mini pillars.  These were great as they looked like totems and fit well with the aesthetic I was going for. Another win was that the enemies were not too annoying in most of the level. Another element that worked well aesthetically was the centaur water which had a nice shade of dark green that felt very appropriate and in place for a jungle.

There are a couple of spots where the Met enemy can be quite the bother to fight as it is hard to hit and can shoot you while you are trying to jump to a higher platform. Even these spots can be pretty easily beaten with a bit of patience and practice. One new element that went well was the introduction of the additional weapon options later in the level. The O slider is well positioned and a clever player can use its special ability to quickly clear the next section though this is rather risky as the slider can cause one to overshoot and fall into the water and die. The S arrow worked pretty effectively as well though its placement wasn't as good as the O slider. The level also did well at lasting a solid ten or so minutes even for new players. This is something some levels I have made before have struggled with. The main problem with the ten minute range is making a level that is long without making it feel too long or too tedious to play through. This was accomplished quite impressively in this level due to the challenging but not really that difficult platforming challenges one had to deal with as one progresses. Ultimately this was one of my better levels to date in terms of a solid amount of difficulty and challenge which matches the prompt I was going for.

On the other hand this level was far from perfect. In fact there are several things I will need to change in future. The first of these changes I need to make is to find more and better back screens for the level. The jungle screens I used for most of the level do not look very good at all when placed in a vertical manner. Another thing I would want to change in theoretical future versions of this level would be finding better bricks to use for the majority of the level as the bright mint green shade and strange texture of the knight man blocks does feel somewhat out of place. It is hard to find good natural colors or textures in mega man due to the robot focused future setting. The knight man bricks were solid for the totems but a more somber color would be better suited for the aesthetic I would like to go for in my level. There are several areas of needless annoyance in the level which can definitely be fixed in a hypothetical future version of the level. The first of these is changing the structure of the tower where the O slider is used in order to not as easily be knocked into the water and die. The other area which use some improvement is the leap of faith near the end where the player must jump off a waterfall and hopefully land on a platform and not on a spike or in the water. There is also one jump in the final set of platforms that is really tricky to get right and often leads to the player falling the water. Another element that could most certainly have been better was the use of additional weapons in the level. Both weapons are not unlocked until the end and are used very minimally in the level. I would need to get in a lot more practice with how they work and how their physics function in order to better utilize them in a theoretical future level. This is far more egregious with the S arrow as it could be pretty easily used but I just did not really come up with any great ideas for it which was just a lack of creativity in using the tools I had available to me. I also did not end up making my level maze-like at all which would have been cool but it just completely passed my mind. Despite these flaws or areas that could be improved the level was one the better ones I have made this semester and I look forward to future projects!

2D Megaman Level 1v2 Playtest Feedback
Things went well in this latest iteration of play testing my Mega Man maker level. I managed to get in some good play testing with some other members of the class before heading back home for break. The level was much better in many respects than the previous iteration. The first of these improvements was the changing of the first screen so that the player was not immediately shot within a second of entering the level. While that had been a good portent of things to come it and other needlessly hard areas had to be changed for the new better iteration. The next few screens were untouched. The enemy placement near the second checkpoint was made less misleading and slightly more challenging. The next changed area was the removal of several picket-men which were more obstacles than actual foes one should actually fight and destroy. This made these sections easier and slightly less easy to exploit damage boosting to skip fighting. Several more picket men were replaced with coltons to change the challenge. They were easier to fight but forced the player into battling them due to their higher damage per attack. Many picket men were removed from later areas as well. Some Brain breaks were added to a few spots as they were very easy enemies to fight and are easy to avoid. Some flying shells were added to the later parts of the level as they deal low damage and can be avoided if smart. The last few screens were improved by making a more cohesive layout and adding a pair of coltons to the final set of stairs. This made the last area a bit of a better finale which had previously been somewhat barren. Ultimately this iteration of the level did a far better job of being a fun introductory level than the first iteration.

The level wasn't all great successes as there were some small issues. The level was still fairly challenging and too hard for the intended audience and purpose of an introductory level. There were many areas of unavoidable damage throughout the level in spite of improvements to reduce this issue. Enemies were still annoying in some areas especially the remaining picket men and the Met which could easily harass the player with projectiles. There were several areas with very annoying and potentially difficult jumps for beginners. There were still a lot of one tile wide platforms which can be very annoying to navigate at times. There were plenty of rooms with spike pits which were also rather annoying to navigate. There were too many checkpoints many of which were practically redundant. There were also too many large health pickups. Some these were almost worthless and some could have been better served being small health pickups. Some rooms where picket men used to be found have become far too bland and easy. Some of the fights with coltons are actually a bit more annoying than the old struggles with picket men. One area where the coltons were notably very annoying was the final screen where the short distance between the penultimate colton and the edge of the screen meant he had a very fast fire rate which made him extremely annoying to fight. This iteration was definitely a step in the right direction but still imperfect and in need of some careful revision.

The critical path of the level still worked well in this iteration and there still was a general lack of circulation elements. The flow felt good as the level got progressively more difficult with some ups and downs before the finale on the last screen. If I would improve this level in the future I would change the enemy setup in some areas and reduce the difficulty in some areas.

2D Mega Man Level 1v1 Feedback

This play test session was very mixed. I enjoyed it very much and so did many of the people who played my level. On the other hand my level did poorly as an introductory level which was the main goal of this play test session. My level was fun for most players. It had a solid aesthetic which fit the western theme. The enemies were largely themed with the level and the aesthetic which I see as a success. Players appreciated the challenge. My level was solidly long which was a rarity in this play test. Overall I see this play test session as having many great successes.

This play test session had several things that went poorly making the success rather bitter sweet. The first and foremost issue was the levels difficulty. This level was far harder than an introductory level has a right to be. One person rage quit my level due to the difficulty. I got a lot of good critical feedback which reminded me that my level lacks good enemy variety and relies too heavily on a particularly annoying enemy. This enemy is the picketman which throws picks at the player which can deal quite a bit of damage especially if the player chooses to stand and fight. Worse is the fact that this dreadful enemy has a shield which he uses periodically to block all incoming damage even from charge shots which means he is not only a high damage enemy but also a very durable one which is a very bad combination. In moderation this is fine but there were parts in which I used far too many of this enemy. This also cut down on the variety of enemies in the level. Another element which was not appropriate for an introductory level was the area where player had to take damage and just run past it. Ultimately I got a great deal of important feedback which I will use when I update and iterate my level in the future.

There will be a great many improvements in the next iteration of this level. The first improvement will be changing the position of the enemy on the first screen of the level. Currently this enemy will shoot the player as soon as they start with only a moment to react. This is not appropriate for an introductory level. I also plan on tweaking a few of the platforms in various parts such as a jump near the beginning which was fairly difficult to pass. There is one area where one jumps down to a lower screen but can jump back up but the two are not connected. Many small one part platforms will be updated to size two platforms at least. This will hopefully make the level more manageable for new players. Another key change will be removing many of the picketmen from across the level. One part will be removing the area where players have to take damage and run pass. The main change will be making the level consistently ten minutes (or new amount of time) from sheer length while removing the sheer difficulty which contributed to the length of the current version. Thanks to all the great feedback I got I will be able to improve my level greatly for future versions.

The critical path was very obvious to the players. There were no alternate paths in the current version which I may change in future. Circulation elements were present as the re-spawning of enemies forced players to keep moving forward. The amount of checkpoints and health pickups helped players move through the level and kept them on track toward the end. Play testers said the flow was very good though I do feel that the end could feature a bit more enemies and challenge to avoid the dramatic drop in difficulty even in easier future versions. The challenge was fun for players as said previously. Most of the players could beat it with a bit of difficulty within a reasonable amount of time. On the other hand the difficulty should have been much lower as this level was supposed to be an introductory level. I fell into the classic blunder of making a game/level harder in order to make it artificially longer. I have learned a great deal from this play test session and look forward to taking the lessons learned here to future versions.

Simple DnD v3 Playtest Feedback

This play test went very very well for one with a new rule set. The players who played this time were David Lopez who played a warrior and Zane Rshad who played a ranger. These two classes are still good while the other classes were gutted. They have also performed very well in previous play tests I have been a part of.

Things went exceptionally well over all especially in comparison to the other maps I tested on this play test day. The approximate doubling of player stats made it a challenge to stat enemies appropriately in this new update to our rule system. I enjoy the new system and things went pretty well in that regard for me. My enemies had their stats doubled across the board and had their health buffed. The health buff was a little extra in some cases but improved the basic enemy quite a bit. The level also took pretty much the full twenty minutes which was an improvement over last play test session in my eyes as the previous iteration took only ten minutes.

The new digital map helped quite a bit with redesigning the layout to fit the new themes and ideas for this play test session. The map required only small layout changes to fit the new theme. These changes included adding some treasures to the map which notably worked quite well. My treasures were notably the best I play tested as they all were functional and gave a variety of bonuses. Some of the other treasures were better in other play tests but the functionality and raw stat boosts provided by my selection of treasures better added to a fun experience. It is never fun if one is given a useless item in a game. The other additions to the map included adding a checkpoint about halfway through the level. This was very useful as it removed the annoying issue of players having to walk all the way from the start of the level to return to the fight. The last major addition to the map was the addition of an exit from the final chamber which can be accessed after the boss enemy is defeated. The boss fight itself went pretty well as the lack of a ranged attack meant the ranged player could move about the boss room and acquire the treasures within. Another good thing with the boss fight was the boss had a reasonable amount of health even if a bit too high. Other bosses I played with in this play test session had a maxed health point value of one hundred which was far too high to fight in a reasonable amount of time which is poor boss design if one want the player to actually face the boss in battle.

Not everything went perfectly to plan in this play test session. Notably the formerly barnacle enemy became an alien turret which had doubled health points and now had a short range attack. This made this enemy far more frustrating to deal with. Not only that the players decided to attack two of them at the same time. This would result in a very long fight which cost the players a fair bit of life. Later encounters with the turrets were also somewhat long and annoying due to the high health, high defense, and ranged attack. The boss also had a bit more health than was probably necessary forcing the fight to go on for several minutes which meant the game nearly went in to overtime.

Another small problem with this play test session was that while my treasures were very functional they were also quite bland. Most of my treasures gave flat stat bonuses which is not very exciting or interactive.

I plan on improving my map in the future by adding more panels to represent earlier and later parts of the prison escape and perhaps include more diverse elements such as sewers and branching tunnel paths obscured in darkness. 

Simple DnD V2 Playtest Feedback

My map was played by Paul who played a mage and Zane Rshad who played a ranger. The map was far better than before. It played more smoothly and was significantly less difficult than the first iteration of the map. The players progressed more smoothly through the opening chamber than the first iteration of the map. There were now choices available than before with two branching paths leading out of the first chamber. One path was shorter but more challenging while the second path was longer but easier. The short path circumvented some enemies but required the players to jump over several pools of water.

The second chamber was also was changed significantly from the first iteration of the map. The detour turned a large amount of unused cave space into a watery tunnel which the players would have to jump from stone to stone in order to cross in one piece. The main sequence of the second chamber is not changed very much from its first iteration though there is an additional enemy to face. This enemy is the one of the  new enemy type from this iteration of the map and changes up the map dynamic because it is tough but immobile meaning that players can bypass it and only take one attack as they pass by the barnacle. The idea of this enemy in game is that it is a giant barnacle monster growing out of the floor of this sea grotto. It would presumably lash out at the trespassing player characters by smashing them with its head.

The third chamber has also experience some changes like the other two. The most notable change to the third chamber is the addition of two small pools water near the pillars in the room. The idea was to use them to block the enemies and attack them from range but the main enemy one would want to do that against has a ranged attack and thus would not be easy to outmaneuver. On the other hand the pillars in third chamber are right next to the pools of water and thus the two could still be used in tandem to outmaneuver the boss enemy. In future the boss enemy will not have a ranged attack so that kiting will be a more viable strategy. Another change to the final chamber was making two of the crab enemies into barnacles. This makes the non boss enemies in the third chamber slightly less dangerous. Though they still did quite the number on the players after their previous fights. The overall amount of deaths the players took was less than half of what they took in the previous play test.

                                                                              

The parts that still were not great were still a bother to deal with and will need to be improved further. The final boss enemy will have its magic attack removed so that it can be more easily kited. I plan on buffing the final boss enemy's attack and armor so that players will have a harder time killing him and to compensate for a removed magic stat. The boss having a magic stat was a key part of how it killed the players many times in the last two play tests. The alternate path could be made more alluring to players so as to avoid the issue of players just straight up avoiding the alternate path. Another issue was that the map felt far too short as players beat the entire thing in around ten or so minutes. I think adding one or perhaps two more panels of map would help alleviate this problem. This would add a great deal to the total kill count though as players would most likely fall to attrition with the addition of more chambers to traverse and more enemies to fight.

Simple DnD V1 Playtest Feedback

So the simple DnD play test on Thursday went very well in my opinion. The players who played my level were David Lopez who played a barbarian and Zane Rshad who played a ranger. The part of the play test that went best was the level was somewhat interesting in layout and combat encounters having good ramping difficulty as later chambers got worse and worse. The worst part of the level was how the level's winding layout meant that player death's forced the players to walk through now empty corridors to return to the end of level boss. The layout of the map is three panels of paper divided into an inch grid of seven by eleven with not all squares being an inch and some being half inches along the paper's edge.

I am planning in future to make more panels to change up the layout in between play tests or make the map larger if necessary. I am also considering changing up the non boss enemies a bit by adding some enemies that are ranged or are tougher but immobile. A notable element I used was enemies moving to attack players aggressively which added to the player kill count of eight or so between the two players.

The challenge felt on par with others I played though probably still a bit too hard as evidenced by the eight deaths between two players. If I were to re-design the level with the game play knowledge I had I would probably make both the regular enemies and the boss weaker and slightly less numerous.

The critical path was obvious as it was a single winding series of caves and tunnels. I might also want to change that in future so as to make the level more interesting.

The flow was adequate in my opinion as the level gradually rose in difficulty as the players progressed though the boss was significantly harder than the previous smaller encounters so for a more balanced flow I might want to tweak and balance the boss to have lower stats to make for less of a difficulty spike.

The circulation pattern was admittedly mostly quite plain as while the map is a winding tunnel it is just a winding tunnel with a few pillars here and there. More pillars or larger dividers in the caverns might be used in a future re-design as the level admittedly has a somewhat simple flow at this point with players entering from a narrow entrance and then proceeding through tunnels and caverns of various sizes before reaching the end.

In regards to teaching players aspects of the game I could have incorporated more elements to teach players the game mechanics such as areas to jump over, or forcing them to use magic, or perhaps some other interesting twist on the formula of this game to show them how it can be innovated. In future I will make sure to focus on making a more diverse level and not one that feels slap dashed together which this level unfortunately was.

Ideas I am specifically thinking of for future design are branching paths perhaps with multiple map routes with different pieces of paper to represent these various paths. Another idea is using new and varied enemy types such as barnacles and fish in addition to my current use of crabs as enemies. New pieces might be in order and perhaps coloring my meeples might help add some more color to the drab plain wood pieces.

Ultimately I consider this level a success on the terms of making a decent starting level to play test this game. It could have gone better or worse but I am looking forward to doing better in future.