3D Game 1

What went right?

The critical path was obvious. There weren’t many paths presented to the player, since the level was meant to be more of a tutorial level. I thought it would be a good idea to minimize the amount of mini-paths to take, so that the player can learn everything. I did not want to leave the change of players missing something important.

Most playtesters have played similar games before, so the tutorial wasn’t difficult for them. Simply, a tutorial level is not designed for these players. They thought it was boring, since the things they had to learn were already intuitive to them. For example, flipping switches in order to activate things. This is not exactly a good or bad thing.

Players like how there were two moving platforms over the acid pool. This made it so you had to leap from one to the next one, while enemies were shooting at you. This felt dangerous, but simple at the same time. I learned it is good to make the player feel like they’re in a dangerous environment, yet keeping it controlled in order to teach the player is a good idea. I learned that from the CGD video “Level Design and Disneyland.” Originally, I thought teaching the player while making it feel exciting would always come off as overdramatic and lame, but now I think it is possible to achieve both excitement and learning simultaneously.

The cool acid pool with moving platforms.

What went wrong?

One playtester noticed you can skip parts of level by climbing over walls. I knew that this would be a problem, but didn’t have the best solution for it. He suggested adding invisible walls. Also, he noticed enemies can move through walls, but not the player.

Figuring out what the teleport locations were were not obvious for players. I made a door-like object with cubes, but to some it looked like decoration. There is not much of an indication that it is a teleport.

There weren’t many tight corners, so it was easy for players to run past the enemies. I threw in a lot of enemies in one spot, but since they’re slow to respond it is still easy to pass them. I played another level with tight corners, and I found it to be much more interesting.

There was one section where you could either get a health pack or continue to the level. It might have made more sense to create more of a reward to getting the health pack. Right now, when you enter the two-way path you have two options:

1. Go to the right. Fight the enemies and heal with the health pack (before knowing what a health pack is) or,
2. Go to the left. skip the enemies, make progress, and take no damage.

The correct choice is obvious-- the left. Most players went towards the health pack, surprisingly, and attacked the enemies. However, they found getting the health pack useless, since after replaying you can just go to the left knowing you can skip the enemies. One solution to this pointless path is to force players to fight enemies ‘first’ in a narrow corner. Then, I would give them the option to go to the right and heal, or go to the left and progress. This would create a much more interesting decision to make.

The teleporter. It didn't look convincing to players.

How to improve next time?

I would add more tight corners, so that the enemy fights are forces. This would add more risk of dying.

I would add more platforming sections over acid, since players found that fun.

I would add more info zones, so players know what’s what (for example, teleporting spaces).

I would add invisible walls, so that players can no longer skip large sections of the level.

I would make it so enemies cannot go through walls.