To start off my level design adventure, I had researched into the theme of Low Poly games as well as looked in depth about the Medieval genre, focusing on buildings, town layouts and what scenic objects littered the small villages. The first major task I set out to do was the main layout of the world, creating some sketches of what I would initially like our levels village to look like. To begin, the player would start at their own home, awoke to flames of a burning village setting, peering out the windows the player would gain an understanding of the enemies they would see and the pathway they must first follow.
Beginning the level, I started off with creating and blocking out a small circled off area that would be the base for the village, the houses in a cul de sack like setting. In this beginning area I intended for the player to start inside the house and see the other houses on fire, the player would then walk down the stairs to the entrance and grab their weapon off the table and exit the building. I had imagined the player would have some debris blocking their way so as a tutorial on attacking the player would have had to hit and break some of the sticks in their way. The player would then move out the village, fighting some small enemies and one or two larger stronger enemies until they made their way to the edge of the village, starting to climb up a large hill.
Before climbing the hill, we had an idea to have the player fight a fire creature, this would in a story perspective be the main boss who set the village on fire, it would also be the first enemy the player would face that would drop a magic crystal. The next stage of planning was to block out a small puzzle, using the newly acquired crystal the player would receive. The Puzzle would have had the player use their new magic, fireball, to shoot at the ropes holding up a half-fallen drawbridge, allowing the player to progress to a newer area, this was also to get the player more accustomed to the idea that different magics could be used to solve different obstacles blocking the player.
During the first session of feedback for the village showed the flaws in the design of the slopes, with VR headsets on, the player could not comfortably climb up the slope leading to the drawbridge, this also caused people who are sensitive to motion sickness to feel uneasy which brought me back to thinking about height and elevation. Taking this feedback, I decided to lower down the slope and made it even smoother for the player transitioning from flat to a sloped area but even with lowering the slope it was still quite high and was not pleasant during playtesting this.
Thinking of how to fix this issue with the level, I decided to take the feedback given and start a new level as a test, making a much flatter village as to avoid motion sickness, this would be the start of the newer level I would be working on, evolving from just a test for motion sickness and favoured layout.
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