3D Game Level 1 v2 Feedback (11/15/21)

    Making this level in Unity was an incredibly turbulent experience. One of the crucial parts of my level design didn’t work, and I had to scramble in order to make it playable and turn it in before the deadline. I basically had to ruin everything. There are a lot of glaring mistakes in there. There’s an info zone I forgot to take out (it was for a switch that was in the previous version). The door that’s supposed to open at the end of the level doesn’t even work. Also the health crate doesn’t actually heal anything. Although surprisingly, people were able to get around the door this time as well.

    Initially, my plan was to have the player climb up the stairs and then go through some doors that would take you to an area where you’d find a switch and use it to unlock the door. But weirdly enough, the transition prefabs provided in the 3D Gamekit didn’t do a thing. I was pretty sure I followed the tutorial correctly, so I’m not really sure what was up with that. The areas were blocked off by big pipe walls so it’d be clearly defined as to where they were (and the player is supposed to teleport inside them). Since I had to delete them, that ruined a big part of the level design. It made it less clear as to where you were supposed to go, although I figure that by the first area, you’d probably figure that the other two have switches too.

    The original idea for my first area was to have the player spawn at the bottom of some stairs and fight some enemies while climbing to the top to get to the switch. Instead, I switched it from top to bottom, which made the enemies completely pointless since you can just jump past them. The navmesh on the stairs probably also made the enemy AI spazz out a little, so that didn’t help things.

    For the second area, it was to be a simple maze. Without the pipe enclosure, it really just seems like a random placement of walls. This area is the first one you’d see walking out of the area from which you spawn (it wasn’t meant to be that way). Also, when you walk in there for the first time, the switch is actually really close to the entrance you’d most likely take. Originally, you’d start at the opposite end of the maze and then reach the switch (but unfortunately when I was making the maze the end part just so happens to be facing where the player spawns).

    I would say the third area would be my best designed part (if everything went according to plan). The original idea was for the player to drop down platforms in order to reach the switch. I was inspired by a level in Splatoon 2 where you had to do exactly that (and then you had to go all the way back up, but that’s too hard for what we’re doing). Unfortunately, due to the transitions not working problem, the drop down plan was a no go. I just left the switch at the bottom and was like “Yeah, the players will just jump to it easily.” I did want to make sure that the player would be able to reach most platforms, and during the playtest, it seemed like I achieved that. They did enjoy the fact that they were able to get so high.

    It is certainly a shame that it didn’t work out. I informed the playtesters of my original ideas and they said that it would have been a pretty good level if I was able to get it to work.

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