Designing my first level
When I made my first game, Easter Bunny’s Lunar Egg Hunt, I put a large amount of the available time in to the level design. This is because I’ve identified level designer as an area I would enjoy working in. Also, I want to develop and demonstrate my skills in this areas.
It’s a very simple game with a fairly small level. I created this game over a weekend to enter the gamedev.tv gamejam, and because of the limited time I had to prioritise. Knowing the level design would be a big part of this project I decided to create a platform game using unity’s tile system. Although it takes a bit of work to create the graphical assets and set everything up, once that’s complete it allows for rapid creation and development of a level.
The main purpose of this game is a demonstration of what I can create at this point in time, so I wanted something that’s easy enough for someone to play to the end and see fully. It is still a game though and I also want to demonstrate an ability to make a game fun to play, so it can’t be too easy.
Taking all of those ideas into account, I had a few key goals:
- Getting players to learn the controls quickly so that they can complete the game
- Create a world players want to explore
- Create areas where the level alters gameplay mechanics
Getting players to learn the controls quickly
On one hand I want the game to be easy to complete so people see everything I made, while on the other I don’t want it to be boring. So, I decided to put a moderately tricky obstacle right at the beginning of the game – a chocolate lake that has to be crossed by riding on an alien jellyfish. People are most motivated to play the game right after they launch it, and failure is very low stakes at this point because you simply respawn right next to the chocolate lake again. I figured it’s the best time for players to be prompted to learn how to play. After a few tries the players who tested it for me crossed the chocolate lake, and they developed a good feel for the controls and how high and far the easter bunny can jump.
Creating a world players want to explore
It’s a small level, but it doesn’t have to be completely linear. The ability to make choices is essential for a sense of exploration. To create choices I made a route above ground and one through a cave system under the moon’s surface. The caves have two access points. From the first access point you can’t quite see what’s down there – it might not even be entirely clear if it’s a place you can go at all, but you can see a bit of the cave. Giving players reasons to ask questions about the game world should help them feel more engaged.
It’s also hard to get down to the caves from the first access point, although not impossible. This access point can be a challenge, or something that hints to another area that might be accessible later, depending if the player chooses to go down to the caves from here or jumps over and continues. Either way they’re making a choice and interacting with the game world.
The second access point to the caves is further into the level and entry is simply a case of going inside. It also goes backwards away from the level’s exit point. I like this because it draws the player backwards and into the caves to experience the gameplay in there. Keeping players in the level longer makes the level feel bigger while only adding a fairly small amount more playable area. Since I had a lot of work to do in a short space of time, this was perfect.
Create areas where the level changes the gameplay mechanics
The interactions between level design and gameplay mechanics are something I talked about in another post, choosing a role. I really wanted to work some of this in to my game. To do this I deliberately limited the ceiling height inside the caves. This affects how high and how far the bunny can jump so that players have to pay more attention and work with altered abilities in this area of the map. There’s also a somewhat difficult jump down in the caves to make these changes very noticeable.
I made it this way for variety, and to make the world influence the player a bit more. I didn’t just want it to be largely background graphics and a few things you jump over, I wanted to add a least one more thing it could do. This happened to be a fairly quick and effective way to implement this. If I had more time though I might have also included something more obvious, like a jetpack and a section filled with aliens to fly though, or some kind of space rocket section at the end of the level where the player flies the rocket off into space, or a molten chocolate slide to ride down. Whatever the case though, it’s fun to mix up the ways the level is played.
What next?
Because of my specific interest in level design it’s important for each project I make. I have started a course focused on this topic – Learn the ART of Level Design. I will also be adding my own design features to the level of each project I make as part of my unity game courses.