Get ya boxes, we’re making levels!

With our core mechanics 90% there (look for the next dev log on details for getting through that last 10%), we are excited to start pushing them to the limit. As a team, we knew that our first level, Oasis, desperately needed a rework, partly due to the change in core mechanics and partly due to a shift in design philosophy. I like to call our old approach to level design the ‘Halo Forge’ technique, which consisted of picking out cool assets and jamming them together to make a platform. This time, we’re taking notes from some of the best platform designers like Nintendo.

We wanted our levels to be more purposeful and require the player to demonstrate their mastery of the jumps and abilities. As such, we started our brainstorming by defining ‘platforming goals’ and a pipeline or shared approach for creating the platforming sections, see image 1.

From there, we workshopped some broad goals from ‘the basics’ to ‘advanced’, image 2. We discussed how we can engage the player and require them to use the mechanics how we intended. The hope is that each goal will help the player learn a mechanic or a use for it and then show what they have learnt by the end of the section. Once each section is done, we can stitch them together to create the Revamped Oasis.

With the planning stages done, we’ll soon be able to share the early versions of these platforming goals and how we will take them from grey-box to final art pass.