Effective talk: Speedy level creation for puzzle games
Year of Talk: 2023
Points covered in talk:
Building the concept.
Postmortem of the speaker's first game.
Build a process to allow for quick-level creations.
How do you layer and group systems/mechanics together to fill the game?
Designing the game:
Plan out some goals for how the game is meant to be.
Do research on similar games so you have an idea of the competition and how mechanics are implemented in those games.
Plan out for barriers in the environment to slow the player. This can be through hazards that move or are stationary.
Try to make mechanics as precise as possible, especially when using physics. It can become annoying when something fails but seems like it's meant to.
Having Insta kill hazards can be annoying for the player. Not recommended at all.
Mobile build:
Hard to see around you or what's to come.
Without being able to see what's coming you have a harder time dogging or going around obstacles.
What needs to change:
Having more organic shapes for the rocks and snow. Allows players to know when areas might start or end more easily.
Adding more assets that look like rocks and snow.
Curing the rock more means that it lets the player try new tricks and reach certain areas easier.
Pre-production:
When making the assets it would take a lot of time to make the assets even though they are low poly art.
This was a problem because initially there was a plan to make around 50 levels which would need a lot of unique art.
5 days per level for a total of 250 days working on the levels.
The dev started using an auto mesh generator which would help optimize the mesh and asset creation in levels.
Once implemented it would allow for quick creation of unique builds with little effort.
Testing out a lot of different formations and a few auto-generation libraries allowed for the assets and levels to look more organic and varied in obstacles.
Production:
Trying to make smooth tutorials that let the players easily learn with the level.
Creating a Variety of levels lets players experience the mechanics without feeling fatigued.
When you group levels by themes or overarching missions it helps make them more memorable.
Tutorials for mechanics:
Having dedicated levels where it forces the player to use certain mechanics and have them learn how it's meant to be used.
The following levels are used to reinforce the mechanics so that the player actually knows how it works.
Using other mechanics to show how they might appear and work in the overarching world.
Creating an Excel sheet that shows all the levels and what mechanics appear where lets you both make sure they appear enough times but also make sure different mechanics appear next to other mechanics.
Variety/Pacing:
Make sure no areas have the same feel compared to other areas. Especially at the same level.
Move between large areas and smaller areas.
Decide which areas of the maps are meant to be completed slower or faster when compared to others.
Having multiple ways to complete certain sections or for the whole level. This means people can try to challenge themselves by going through a side route or just the main one.
Theming:
Creating (at least) one unique area in the level. Makes them easier to identify.
If the player tries to explain the level, what area will they talk about?
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