2D Mega Man Level 2 Feedback

     The level was a success, but it just doesn't live up to the same quality of the first one. Maybe im scrutinizing my work too hard though, as it got practically the same review as the first level. And by that I mean it literally got the same user reviews of 7 likes and 2 dislikes.


Besides gameplay, I tried to strongly stick to the theme and story requirement. I felt as even if the level wasn't perfect gameplay wise, simply looking pretty and atmospheric would carry it a decent distance. I wanted to make the player feel like they are on an expedition of sorts, so I attempted to create a raft on a river in some deep jungle terrain. Near one of the cave exits, I also made a miner in a hill, to try to make it look like the world was alive




This was my first time working with liquid tiles, and I could figure out a way to create a nice looking water fall with them, so I did a combination of these new liquid tiles plus some regular blue ones to try to get a nice look. The map design in terms of paths is quite similar to my first level. While level one has a "U" like shape, this one is more like a inverted " Ω" (omega) symbol. I like making the players start on the far right and work their way to the left, as its rather untraditional in side scrollers. The maze I did In the underground layer had plenty of 1 block gaps that required the player to slide in order to get in. But other than that, the parkour was nothing new.


I also wanted to have a boss battle as well in this level. Since it's against the assignments requirements though, the battle is completely option, and does not affect the final outcome of the level. I just felt like there needed to be some sort of challenge near the end. So I chose to throw in a rather large and new enemy for the player to deal with.


After the boss is defeated, or the player simply jumps over him, they are met with some basic parkour in order to get to the escape boat. Again I could have simply through the game ending energy item right after the boss, But I wanted to make it feel like there was more to the world, so I made a small beach a rock jump leading to the boat.



Overall the level was pretty good. The play testers, which have been the same for my other 2 levels, were really big fans of the environment. It really seemed to me that they cared less about things like enemies and parkour as long as it matched the setting and feel. The feedback regarding changes I received was few but very impactful. One of the players abilities that makes them turn red and shoot rockets, also turns out gives them double jump. This allowed players to skip significant portions of parkour if they knew how to use it, which only one of the play testers encountered.   

Another thing was how the game interacted with checkpoints. It seems that while a player was in a checkpoint tile, they lost the ability to slide. And since the entrance to the maze required a slide to get in, and had a checkpoint right outside, it required the players kill themselves and dash right away to get in. Thought annoying and tedious, all players figured it out eventually. For future notice I will not be putting checkpoints so close to areas like this. To conclude, this was a success. People seemed to enjoy the level, and I also received valid criticism regarding how I could improve upon it. I am very delighted with the results I obtained,






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