Level Design Pt.3
Dynamic Map Design
As mentioned before, it was essential to understand how to create a dynamic map, which to my understanding would be to create building blocks like Lego, where we have to build one map and then another and then other and replacing each one of them when it’s possible, so to get a better understanding of this there is a game called Splenky which procedurally generated the levels in the game, so what did I learn?
In order to create these maps, the game begins as a 8x8 block table where the game would select an entrance point out of any of these blocks, then it starts to build a simple path until it can’t go on any further, then once it can’t go any further that final block is considered the exit and finally it then tries to create a safe path that the player should be able to travel through, so there is always a path that can be applied.
To add more randomness to the design of the level, each block within this path then will split into 4 separate categories:
Landing - A place that player needs to land on or is a flat surface can spawn anything else in the area
Corridor - A place the player needs to get through but it blocking the player slightly mainly enemies could be spawned here
Non-critical - Literally a resting point where nothing needs to happen to the player, makes sure nothing bad can happen here
Drop - where the player has limited places to actually stay on stable surface
Now with that piece of information the game will randomly put these in each block of the path so what did I learn from this in general.
We could make some designs of the levels that all are the same. and also not the same. So the level designs would have to be similar in size so we can take on design and hopefully just place it in there, like slot one in and after another game, another design of the map but the same size would be planted there instead.
This is where I would then focus on how this can be presented as an idea, or a concept at least.
Refined Level Designs
From the previous level structure we got this needed some refining or at least understanding how the dynamics would work within this game, so I proposed doing it like this.
Create a few designs for each puzzle area
Then make the game randomly pick which designs it would use and insert them into the puzzle area
And to show this off with some examples, here are some:
In this case, the P means which Puzzle and D means which design, so hopefully with our 3D environment this should be possible to implement, where these are slots for different designs and the difficulty of the puzzle is determined by it’s number, the higher the harder it is. Even if we make three for each puzzle, the dynamic design would keep the levels fresh for both players involved with the game giving that illusion of a different playthrough
Step by steps
Next was to start development on the Step-by-Steps.
What I’ve learned from previous making puzzles is create a flow of how the players should solve these puzzle regardless of any level boundaries, just so long as you can use the players abilities into consideration when making these ideas. What needs to be presented is the ideal way which players should finish levels and these are the steps they should take if they were basically robots knowing all the possibilities.
For now, I’ve created just the beginning levels and they are part of Puzzle 1 should be created easy to complete, nothing too complex. Players should be able to understand their abilities with ease near the beginning of each play through; if they are still new then this will be good learning for them and if they are experienced players they can glide through the level and have some troubles in regards to challenges that will arise later on.
Next Steps
What should be tackled next is to finish off these designs so we have something to put into the level, but now specifics needs to be created for the mechanics so the developers can gather a better understanding of what they need to accomplish with the game and how they can avoid any bugs during development.