Do you need a boost?
Development continues! In my last post I showed off the proof of concept, and I learned a lot from that. One of the most important takeaways was that I needed more horizontal movement, the multiple jumps felt great but I was still lacking that sense of speed and flow. I have decided that my solution for this would be to add a boost. This boost can be triggered when the player hits a combo of 3 or more and uses 3 combo points to get a boost forward.
Revisiting My Proof of Concept
Fun Through Iteration
After making a major change such as this, I felt I need to go back and play through my original proof of concept in order to get a feel of how much this would change my approach to level design. I immediately felt a huge difference in how fast I was traversing through the level, it also felt more fun to play through. There are so many more opportunities and decisions to be made (should I jump or boost?) before it felt limited, you could only jump and hope you had enough jumps to clear an area, now you can boost to clear large gaps or jump to gain some more height or to correct a misplaced boost.
How Does This Impact Future Level Design?
This change has inspired me for future levels, I plan to design a new level with the boost in mind, and create opportunities where the player has a lot of horizontal space to work with and some places where vertical movement is more important. Overall, this change has also opened up more opportunities for levels to be larger since the player is able to cross them with more ease now. I plan to conceptualize these levels, with general narrative ideas, and themes to help guide the blocking process.
Plans for Storyboarding
POSTED SEPTEMBER 28,
2024
BY ABNER SALAZAR
Creating A Motivation
The image above, is from one of my other projects called Envisage. The concept for this game was to have a character who is fighting to figure out their identity, from believing they know what they are (alive) to finding out that they are more than that (dead) and that is ok. Inspired by this idea I created levels depicting this struggle. The first level was a completely vertical climb, with difficult platforming sections. This was followed by another level that allows the player to play as a different form with new abilities, then the player is plummeted back down, having to relearn everything they thought they knew but with new experiences (the new form). The player could now switch between light and dark form. Finally the player plays through a couple of levels being able to switch between forms until they reach the final boss, concluding the arc for the main character.
The reason I am bringing up Envisage is because I love designing levels and games with a narrative in mind. In the case of LockxJump I want to create a narrative that adds context to the players actions but also motivates them on their journey. Right now I have some concepts in my head and in my next post I plan to show off my storyboard and level plans for the future. Stay Tuned!
Until next time! Thank you for reading!