Designer of level system

Hi, it is I, the Designer of time. Taking a break from designing our level to write to you guys.

I have been working on our level for Echo (still not the final name and I hope we can come up with something better soon). It is a work in progress and to perfect it, will most likely be impossible, but the least I can do is to make it as good as I can within our time frame.

There is so much I could talk about the level design. So, I think the blog would benefit if I narrowed it down to one of the many aspects. The thing I narrowed it down to is my level system, that is rather interesting, if I may say so myself.

But before I write about that, I want to tell you why I came up with this elegant but a bit complex idea. It all began when we re-thought how our game should be, and tried to make it doable within the time frame we have been given. One of the programmers and I (we influence the game the most in our group) had different views about how the level layout should be like. He was thinking of a kind of labyrinth when I was thinking of a linear path for the player. When neither of us gave up, I went home and began pop out ideas on how to solve our problem.

 

This is the whole map, but the camera will be zoomed in on the player at all times. So the player will never see the whole map at any certain time.

This confusing mess is what I came up with. This would be the map in its wholeness. For now it looks somewhat like a labyrinth with a lot of intersections. But like it looks now would be impossible for a 2d game to look like. With the paths going over and underneath each other makes it look like a mess. But with my idea the player would not even know that the paths crossed each other as it does. With that said I would like to try to explain how I designed it.

When the player start the game, there is no level but where the player is at the time.

The level only exists where the player is. So, for starters, when the player start the game, the only part of the map is the part as shown in the picture above.

When the player nears the intersection, the adjacent sections appear for the player to see.

As soon as the player enters a certain area right before the section, the adjacent sections will appear as if they were always there.

When the player goes in one of the directions, and the other sections cease to exist.

The player chooses one path, and the others disappear from existence.

The player goes into the next intersection and the adjacent sections appear. 

When the player comes to the next intersection everything repeats and the player must choose a new path.

The player chooses one path and the others disappear.

The player takes the final path to reach the nest, as the other paths disappear once again.

 

 

By doing it like this, the player move through the map without ever knowing the map was crossing itself at several points. Making what was once thought impossible to do in 2d, possible.

As I said before, this is work in progress and not nearly perfect in any way. But still, I think we could use this and make a level with this system.

And with that said. I, the Designer of time, goes back to design. I will see you in the next ”Designer of…” with new amazing designs.