Blobboy's Level Design Document

Introduction: I had fun with this project and once I birthed my idea I wanted to see it look great. My goal was to make a platformer that focused on a blob as its main character who was able to absorb and use items to power himself up and defeat enemies in the way.

What went right

1.      Mechanics worked great

o   Each mechanic that I worked on, I got to work as it was intended and overall, I was pleased I could get them all up and running in a short time. I had given myself the task of creating multiple powers to give the player variation on which powers they can use as the character absorbs them. There was lightning power, water power, fire power, and projectile power that each worked differently. That’s not including the spawn pads that allow the player to spawn a copy and switch between the two.

2.      Level Flowed

o   When testing and constructing the level I had to make sure the level flowed and the player could move in between the parts effectively. I think the level has a good flow and the player can freely move in between all the sections effectively and felt fun just moving around along with using my other mechanics like double jumping and wall jumping.

3.      UI looked good

o   I loved the way the UI looked and how it effectively communicated with other blueprints to show the countdown bar, health, inventory, and how it displayed which power was currently being used at the time.

4.      Inventory System

o   Held in my game blueprint I had an inventory system that helped store items and what type of items they were as well. However only using the key item in this level, it effectively stores and uses these values at will and works wonderfully as an inventory system.

5.      Powers

o   The powers made the level have some replayability to essentially see what the other powers do and made the level fun to play around with. The best power or mechanic the character has at his disposal is his absorb mechanic which allows the player to absorb almost anything and use it to its advantage similar to Kirby. That combined with the cooldown allowed more of a challenge to give the player a choice on whether to engage or avoid enemies.

What went wrong

1.      Ladder Movement

o   The ladder works as intended, however, sometimes the player gets stuck if there is not enough momentum gathered or if the ladder is too long. Also, when the player collides with a collider it triggers its character movement to flying mode and since the character collision is pretty big once close to a ladder it makes it hard to jump next to the ladder. I can tweak this by editing the player and ladder collision and adding more force on the climb of the ladder.

2.      Spawn Pad

o   When using the spawn pad and spawning a clone next to the player it sometimes knocks the player off the axis, completely inverts the controls and in some cases locks the player's movement. I was able to lock the player to a specific axis for character movement that limited this happening but still had some instances.

3.      Enemy Movement

o   Because I was focused too much on getting all the player characters’ mechanics up and running, I neglected the enemies and didn’t have time to troubleshoot their movement to the way I desired within the month. I put some code for it, but it doesn’t work as intended yet.

4.      Needed to adjust some platforms

o   There were some situations where areas weren’t possible to get to, therefore, I had to adjust and add additional platforms to make sure the player would have access to those areas.

5.      Too many mechanics used

o   Because I was locked in on making these mechanics work properly, I wasn’t able to get enemy movement or add more to the level design. However, despite that, I think the level flows smoothly, and with a few adjustments, it will be great.

Conclusion: Despite a few challenges, the project came out phenomenally, and getting this done in under a month is an achievement. When I continue to tweak it and flush out what went wrong this can be one of my best works and it helped me expand and grow my skills as a designer.