William B Devlog - Week 6

Total Time:  ~10 Hours

Level Design:

My goals and tasks for the 25% sprint were to sketch and design Level 2 for Spit It Out!. Level 2 is the first introduction of the second set of gizmos for the players being the button for the brain and the crank for the body.  I decided to split this level into three different rooms. The first room gives the players only the new gizmos to give them a chance to learn and experiment with them. The second room gave the players both gizmos to show them how to interact with each other and when to use the different gizmos. Finally, the third room would serve to challenge the players with a bit more difficult puzzle.

After designing the first two rooms I did a playtest with our team lead, Grayson, where I got some great pointers and critiques. Firstly, my designs were simply a little too complicated and difficult for Level 2, amongst some other design flaws. Using his advice, I went back to the drawing board and tried again. This time I did my best to lower the difficulty and make the first room very introductory, aiming to have players beat it in about one to three minutes. The second room would take slightly longer given they now had to think about two different gizmos, so it would take around three to five minutes. Finally, I designed the last room. Looking back, I think I went a little too wild with it again. I got carried away with a design I liked, having the entire room revolve around an elevator system that would have players move between the different floors in order to progress. With this last room aiming to be a bit more of a challenge, this will take around six to eight minutes to beat. After some playtesting, I will go back and tweak these rooms as needed. After finishing these sketches on paper I moved to color them in Photoshop to have an easier time reading them for playtesting.

Overall, I made some great progress and learned a lot this week. I still need to work on my ability to balance difficulty in my levels but I will get better at it with time and practice.