Today i got stuck into creating a very quick and rough level for a duck collecting game to establish feel.
This was quick, very quick. The initial design was based off a combination of a few peoples ideas drawn from a sketched layout. As a team we decided that we wanted to do a level with large amount of verticality and jumping options.
We essentially have four heights to this level. As you can tell it is very, very grey box and not even a scale grey box. However, the team and I tested this at least twenty times in an hour and a bit, and by the end of it, it felt really fun.
You can see what you need to get right at the beginning of the level. There is a central focal point that forces places to cross paths. You have many options to jump to great heights and to run away from opposing player. The best thing we found right towards the end of our allocated time was that you can jump from one of the highest points in the level in order to land on the lowest. This was great watching this happen, because it happened in testing and was an accident. Seeing something occur when you hadn't planned it was amazing. Having this kind of mobility with many places to get in and around, made a very broken simple grey boxed level become quite enjoyable.
I cant wait to fine tune this a bit more and hopefully we decide to follow this grey box (or something similar) into our actual level. I am really happy to be working with the team I am (Zane, Max and Peter) We all seem to understand one another and work cohesively to get the best out of each other. I know this is early days but i am confident in the Lucky 7′s
