CAGD 270 - Level Design

  The people that playtested my level were Bryan Hodoyan, Fernando Uribe-Hernandez, Heath Brough, Jonathan Villaloboz, Mia Anderson, and Selena Benavides. The main changes that I had made about the level between now and the previous rendition were that I made it difficult to escape the level bounds, and I added some additional maze-like obstacles. I lastly moved the position of one of the monsters. I think that the addition of textures was not a major addition, but it served its purpose in creating a more finished look for the level. In the middle portion of the level, I added a pseudo-maze to the level with the goal of trying to decrease the amount of open space in the level while simultaneously adding a more exploratory element to the level. I believe that it had achieved its intended purpose. One of the pieces of advice that I was given that I want to change about any levels I make in the future is that the very first monster was much too close to the player’s spawn. As so...

  Bryan Hodoyan, Christian Scanlan, Fernando Uribe-Hernandez, Heath Brough, Jonathan Villaloboz, and Pablo Flores Moran playtested my game. Something that went right with my playtest is that my level was fairly uninhibited by any gameplay-ruining bugs or components that took the player out of the experience. The level itself had a fitting difficulty–it was fairly straightforward, and all of the obstacles which the player encountered were focused on introducing the mechanics to the player rather than the challenge of the gameplay. However, there were many things that I noticed that should have been fixed, and there are also many many things that I personally want to improve upon in the next version of this level. One of the points of feedback I was given in the playtesting session was that my level was easy to escape the bounds of. I agree with this assessment–it did not seem as if it was particularly difficult to find a way to get on top of the walls of the level, and avoid entire ...

  Bryan Hodoyan, Fernando Uribe-Hernandez, Jonathan Villaloboz, Mia Anderson, and Samantha Shanahan playtested my level. Some things that I noticed while the players were playing my level is that there were a handful of portions of the level that went unexplored due to the inclusion of keys. In my level, I utilized keys and doors to provide the player with alternative routes that were slight shortcuts over the normal routes. However, I believe that that addition gave the players a sense of incompleteness in that they were aware of the fact that they had not explored all that the level had to offer.  There was a portion of the level where the players needed to jump across a pit onto a falling block, and then immediately jump onto a ladder before the block fell. This was a needless difficulty spike that only created frustration for the player as it was noticeably more difficult than the portions of the level before and after. Another issue that the level had was that there was l...

  I had my level play tested by Mia Anderson, Bennie Ksiazek, Fernando Uribe-Hernandez, and Samantha Shanahan. Something that went right with the level was that the changes I made from the previous version of the level showed marked improvements in the gameplay experience for the player.  One of the changes that I had chosen to make was to optimize the placement of enemies, and to decrease the amount of them. In the first playtest, when the players were focused on the platforming challenges I had created for them, they kept getting attacked and set back by enemies on different platforms. I could tell just by watching the players play that it was a frustrating experience. It may have added a degree of difficulty to the level, but in this case it was not necessarily a positive thing as the level is meant to be geared towards beginners at Mega Man. Additionally, the way that it set the player back was frustrating and cumbersome. In the updated version of the level, the first thin...

Fernando Uribe-Hernandez, Bennie Ksiazek, Mia Anderson, and Selena Benavides playtested my level. The playtest was somewhat smooth, but there were some issues which the players ran into that could have easily been fixed with more playtesting. One of the things that went right was the players were able to follow the critical path through the level. It was fairly straightforward as the path for the players to take only diverged once, at the beginning, and each path contained many checkpoints. I felt that a lot more went wrong with the levels than went right. One of the issues that I noticed the playtesters ran into was that there were simply too many enemies. In conceptualizing and building the level, it did not seem like there were too many of them. But, being unfamiliar with how Mega Man works and having never played it before, I did not know that the enemies respawned once Mega Man moved out of an area of the level. So, players would move back and forth through the sections, thinking ...

  The players who played my map were Bennie Ksiazek and Fernando Uribe Hernandez. Bennie played Rogue this time around, while Fernando played Ranger. Something that went right with this playtest was that the players, despite the challenge being greater this time, seemed very motivated to take on the monsters. They engaged in fights with them, while also considering small strategies as to how to minimize possible damage they might take or maximize their damage dealt. It was very entertaining to watch them try and utilize their items in conjunction with their regular attacks based on whatever opponent they were dealing with at that moment.  Another thing that went well was the progression of the map. The map was fairly straightforward, but both players were somewhat exploratory in terms of going in directions that were not essential to the main objective of the map. Something that went wrong was that unfortunately, the players were unable to experience the second level to the ma...