CAGD 270

3D Level

Changes:

The changes I made to this level were to add more UI to let the player know what elements of the game they can’t see are being used
I also added more content to make the game a little more interactive while they are going between locations

In version 1, I had very little to offer such as only a couple of doors and some enemies

Mechanics:

What went right?

The mechanics for the moving platforms worked very well as when players were going in them they all worked as planned.
The doors were working as planned even though I was making the switches/buttons far apart from the doors.

What went wrong?

There were problems making the chompers and spitters move. They were running above where the acid was. They were also running through walls that Ellen could not run through. I had to rebake the plane to make sure my edits were saved and working properly.
Some problems that I ran into were the hitboxes with the chompers. Some chompers have more hit points although when Ellen would hit them, she would take them out in 1 or two hits. I was able to fix it by increasing their invulnerability time to 1. (shown below)

Another problem I ran into was the fact that there were multiple planes connected and overlapping each other which caused the panes to act very difficult making pits for the pools of acid. (shown below)

I was able to fix it temporarily by selecting the faces of each of the malfunctioning faces and forcibly moving them down as far as I could so that I could make the level look better seeing as how when I was making it the edges of each of the faces were not working.

How do you plan to challenge the player in the lead-up to a Boss Fight?

Leading up to the boss fight I plan to show the player 3 different teleporters to choose from. Before entering the teleporters a UI will pop up that gives a very vague and short description of where each teleporter leads to.
There are 3 different paths the player can take:

A platformer that is only about making jumps. The jumps will be much harder than the jumps the players had to make in the tutorial section. This will be due to the fact that the speed of the platforms will be increased. (shown below)
A search and find, will have the players look for certain switches/buttons that make the doors open among a pile of other duds that do nothing. There will be a UI that helps tell the player whether or not they are getting closer to finding the switch. (shown bellow)

A kill all enemies, which will require the player to kill all or most of the enemies to get through and head towards the switch. There will be health crates that will heal the player when they get low. There is a limited amount of health crates so the player will have to be wise when using them. (shown below)

How do you plan to introduce the Boss Fight/Area?

When introducing the Boss Fight/Arena I will have the player do a little obstacle course that will go through all the possible areas in the arena at the end of the tutorial.

This will be so that the player can get a little bit of an understanding of the challenges they will face once they finish the tutorial.
The only thing that I will not introduce in the tutorial is the dud switches. This is so that the player can learn about it if they choose to, this is done in a controlled environment where the player does not have to worry about enemies aside from a given few.

Below is an annotated map (top) and a concept sketch (bottom) of how I want the Boss Fight/Arena to look.

Players:

The people who played my map and all of its iterations were Armaan Gill, who was the Rogue, Francisco Moreno, who was the Mage, and Joahan Diaz, who was the warrior. They each chose which character to play their respective characters at the beginning of our map developments. The ranger did not take part in the playthrough as our party did not have enough players to include it, as shown in the image below

What went right:

The layout of the map was good as there were many paths that the players could choose from and they would all eventually lead to the same ending area. I took more of a semi-linear approach when making my map, so the players could make their own choices whilst having them end up in the same spot no matter what sort of gameplay they took.
To ensure maximum player likeability I added hidden areas in some parts of the map with hidden items so that the players could find them if they looked hard enough. I let them know about the hidden areas by telling them “As you come up to the cross-paths, you feel a gust of wind coming from the wall as if there is something behind it”. As shown in the image below I added two hidden passages.

What went wrong:

One thing that could have gone better was the stats of the enemies as when the player came up to them, they were able to defeat them in 1 attack turn. I only had 4 different enemies including the boss. I could have made the enemies stronger so that the players could have a challenge when fighting or at least a longer fight. As shown in the picture below the bats have really low health and low defense, meaning that any attack would surely kill them in one hit.

How did implementing doors/keys help or hurt your level:

Implementing doors and keys helped my level as it sort of forced the players to explore the entire area to find all the keys so they could advance to the boss. The doors to the final boss require multiple keys as seen below, which are spread across the map.

How did players respond to the items:

The players responded quite well when items were introduced. I had added a new hidden area compared to my version 2 (left) as seen below to add more to the level while keeping it the same size.
The items helped a lot in the end game when fighting the boss as the players may not have been able to defeat the boss without them. Some items helped specific players while others anyone could use, and there were some that helped the entire party such as the hoverbike.
Another item that helps the entire party is the checkpoint. It allows the players to be sent back to a specific point on the map rather than sent all the way back to the beginning. I should have added a second checkpoint right before the boss so that if any of the players were to die they wouldn’t have to go all the way back and fight all the enemies again.

Notable Changes:

One major change that I made from the first version was hidden areas. As seen below, the first version (left) did not have any hidden areas, while the third version (right) has 2 which have items that help the players.
Another major change are the doors that prevent the players from getting to the boss immediately. In the first version (left) the players were free to explore the entire map without any restrictions, while in the third version (right) there are doors that limit the areas that the players can go to until they find the keys to unlock them.