Mega Man Level 2 Feedback

 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 little to no incorporation of the different Mega Man weapons that we were allowed to use in this playtest. The addition of the weapons was not necessarily a negative one–it ultimately helped the players and did not provide any downsides to being present. However, there was only one part of the level in which the players required one of the weapons. 

There was one last issue that I noticed with the playtest, and that is on one of the portions of the level, there is a segment where the player must cross quickly across a long falling platform and reach the other side. If the player falls down into the pit below, they are faced with two skull walker enemies and no options to escape. 

Some things that went right was that other than the players missing out on a couple of secret routes, they were able to complete the level with very little roadblocks. But, in the future, there are many things that I would like to work on for this level and in general. 

For example, one thing that I would like to work on is definitely to increase the length of the level. Both this level and my previous level have fallen short of the 10 minute mark–I believe that I can easily hit that mark by adding more space for the player to breathe in between obstacles, and to increase the length of certain obstacles so that it introduces slightly more repetition into the level and allows the player to get used to certain mechanics of some weapons.

Another change I will make in the future is that there will be a greater variety of obstacles in the level. With the addition of the different kinds of weapons which the player is now allowed access to, I would like to vary the types of obstacles which they face so that the player is forced to use all of the possible uses of the given weapon.

The last thing I would like to incorporate is less of an addition to the level and more of a change in the order of operations before releasing the level. In the future, I would like to extensively playtest my own level before finishing it. I believe that some, if not all of the issues that the players encountered in today’s playtest were easily preventable and could have been noticed had I played through the level with more attempts. These issues that popped up are recurring issues, and I believe that my levels will be able to be much better if I am able to move past committing the same level-building mistakes over and over again.