Thoughts on Level Design

So it's been a few *cough* months *cough* since the last update. Update 2 includes significant additions to the areas teased in Update 1. Thanks to this the amount of effort needed is more than double what was required for the initial version of T-SOL. Coming up with interesting locations to explore is, in short, hard. So, how are we doing it?

Me and Tofski have different influences in how we design both gameplay and levels. I'm drawing influences from Super Metroid, La Mulana and, to a small extent, Hollow Knight, plus various other games outside the genre. My intent is for each zone of the game to have its own character within the overall game. The crash site is the tutorial. Subterrainia, the first zone, is to provide a sandbox for the player to get used to platforming and shooting. The idea is that once the player can pass the basic challenge of Subterrainia the game will open up significantly.

Every zone in the game is meant to have at least one over-arching puzzle to it. The puzzles aren't going to be terribly complex and are meant to encourage interacting and exploring. For example, one area will involve adjusting the level of a caustic liquid to allow navigation. Most likely we're going to be revisiting and revising these zones and puzzles as we figure out what Saul's moveset is. We want to have curiously inaccessible sections spread throughout the map to hint at future ability unlocks.

I personally like to design levels in T-SOL around the player's movement through them. In particular I want to design navigation of a zone around how the player could mess up at platforming. Usually an error means falling. Depending on the atmosphere I'm going for in a zone falling could mean ending up in an unexplored area or it could mean falling into a dangerous hazard. Ultimately each zone is a branching path broken up by shooting and platforming challenges.

This is an early part of the Cyberskull Factory area. The first goal of the area is to get to the top with the energy beams providing the player a vague hint for the way to go. The challenge is in actually navigating the various platforms upward. Success leads the player to the main puzzle element of the area. Alternatively, the player could choose to explore deeper in the factory finding several areas locked off by the puzzle. Navigation makes heavy use of Saul's air dash ability with the relatively mild penalty of falling for failure. Other parts of the game are not as forgiving of mistakes in platforming.

Will you go up? Or down? Either way there's something interesting to find in the depths of the factory.

I intend to post about progress in the next day or so. Stay tuned.