Mega Man Level 1 V1

     I had a rather poor experience making my first Dragons & Dungeons game, so I had rather low expectations going into Mega Man, as it was also a game I had never played or watched before. I was quite happily proven wrong a few minutes into the tutorial, to my relief. The game was a very basic 2D platform, and had very simple controllers and level generation tools. I changed the default ZXC ones to those I'm more familiar to (ASWD), as it was clearly reflexes were everything in this game, and I did not feel willing to rewire my muscle memory to work with such a foreign set of controls to do basic actions.

With the desert theme that was given, I decided early on how I wanted my map layout to work. I imagined it as a "U" shape, with the player starting on the top left corner of the left leg of the letter, slowly working their way in a inverted arch. This would lead them from the surface to a underground layer, and then eventually back to the surface. I thought it would be fun to make the player move backwards, as so many 2D platforms simply have the players go up and right to progress through a level. Why not try something new?

The level was meant to be a tutorial of sorts, so I made sure to begin with very basic parkour, with no real penalties, to teach the player how to jump. This would be followed by a trapped enemies, giving the player ample time to learns the enemies AI and how to kill it. Both of these lessons would prove valuable later on, as the parkour starts to get longer, and tends to involve death if failed. Likewise, those same enemies will appear in larger numbers, and their movement far more freed from and impeding terrain.

The three people I had play test my game was my father (48), a family friend (19), and my younger sister (7).  This was evidently a very diverse group of people both age and skill wise. To many's surprise, my Dad would be the most experienced in video games. Though he had never played Mega Man prior to this, he was addicted to Donkey Kong and PacMan man when they were at their prime. I presumed from playing many games like this, his reflexes from using such minimal controls would transfer over to Mega Man. My close friend on the other hand, only played games like Minecraft passively, and really hadn't played and video games in the past 5 years, I figured that he would have the next best shot at being successful. And finally my little sister, who grew up playing games that only used touchpad controls. Using keys would be brand new. But at the same time, being so young, I figured she could adapt quickly. 

Quickly it became apparent the starting jump in my level was very difficult, in fact it was labeled as the most difficult jump in the level. Luckily, their was no penalty from failing, and the design made it so the player could quickly try again.

One positive I did note from the difficulty of succeeding in the jump, was the amount of accomplishment and joy the player received after finally beating it. And since this was considered the "hardest" jump in the level, it made the players more than confident enough in tackling all the parkours that lay ahead of them.  I did have to beat the jump for my sister though, as she was simply lacking in the muscle memory required to press the keys in perfect order. Besides that though, all 3 play testers beat the level. Both my father and friend taking roughly 15 minutes, and my sister understandably taking roughly 45. It seems as the level was enjoyable for all parties, with no notable issues mention besides the jump at the very beginning.

The level had a public rating of 7/2 so it seems as the community found it rather exciting as well.