When I last spoke to Jenna she recommended following the level design that Crash Bandicoot series has. It was where my first sole direction was so it only made sense to see how the professionals did it.Â
I found a helpful site which went through a step guide to creating level designs for platform games.Â
http://devmag.org.za/2011/07/04/how-to-design-levels-for-a-platformer/
Make a list: what the player does, sees, learns, hears, and encounters. The list should include specific items and general items. Specific items usually occur once in a level. General items occur more than once in a level.
1. Choose a Visual theme:
Opening Scene: Snowmen are playing and then one of them falls off the cliff. This leaves the snowman alone and needing to go through the level to get back to his friends.Â
Learning Controls: Learns to jump
Meets the first enemy: Snowman will meet the polar bear, learns that it harms the health bar of the Snowman
Picks up ammo: picks up snowball which the snowman is to use as ammo. It throws snowballs at enemies to stun them or to kill them.
3. Make a detailed layout:
4. Build the initial layout:
Iâve started to build the layout and to test the playability.
Snowy Ground = where the player will spend most of the time running through the level.
Icy Platforms = where the player has the least amount of friction, barely any control and will slide off into tricky situations.
Jumping Platforms = small platforms to retrieve collectibles or to escape enemies.
Moving Platforms = were the player will need to ride platforms which move to progress to the next stage of the level.
There was a different range of snowmen to use in the Unity pack and at first, I wanted to just use one. But, after some thought realized I could use all of them to my advantage.
I will have the snowmen playing together and one of the snowmen falls off a cliff. This where the player will learn to go through the level to try get the snowman to go and try to get back to his friends.Â
I referred to this slide heavily when designing my game. I struggled with programming this at first was managed to get it working. The snowman health starts as a full green bar, but once it is harmed will turn red the most it is harmed. Once itâs reached itâs full capacity it will end the snowman life and will respawn depending on the lives the snowman has. I also have programmed him to bounce off the enemy once harmed. That way he wont continuonly get harmed if the snowman stays in the same position.
I havenât programmed lives yet but I want the snowman to have 3 lives in the game. If those lives are used up before the end of the level then the game will be OVER. I will have lives throughout the game to pick up to process positive feedback loops.Â
