Game Design Development

After relinquishing the head design role to Jason I was a little worried to as to the direction the game would take. I was initially keen to take the head design role, however it happened that I was the only one willing to do graphic design fro the game and so I've taken that role in the absence of anyone else.

For a few weeks the development was going around in circles; deciding upon some game elements, then back flipping the next week only to return to it again. For example the overall style of the game was initially going to be self contained, small cohesive levels that present an obvious A to B progression challenge. We developed the concept further to make the game an interconnected world design where the player has narrative driven objectives, for which the nonlinear interconnect stages become the setting. I was worried this would water down the level design as it places a lot of restrictions on the design, for one it becomes necessary for the areas to have multiple paths through them to allow backtracking, and it also requires that each area be designed well enough to keep it interesting for each revisit as well as avoiding frustration from the player due to the difficulty of certain areas. We have since turned back to the original stripped down design idea of self contained levels as it allows for more interesting free-form stage design worth the only constraint being that there must be an end goal for each stage.

Presently I am very happy with the direction the game is heading. The stripped down design is the way I always wanted to take the game as i felt while a narrative could have added to the game, it would be detracting from the unique gameplay mechanics more than adding to them. The key to the game's success comes down to the level design which is something I'm eager to get stuck into. Minimalising the game and graphic design means we have a lot more time to focus on the level design.

Levels so far designed by Jason have been interesting enough to show of the mechanics of the game though I fear he lacks strength in conceptual design as they are very straight forward and not as awe inspiring as one might hope. I am very interested to see what the rest of the team has in mind for level design and I myself will be working more on level design as the other aspects of the game are finalised.