Locking Down Mechanics

WEEKLY NARRATIVE

This week was a little more laid back for me than the last two weeks (thankfully). I primarily worked on level design. No web development this week!

We also locked in our mechanics that we definitely want in this game, and the over all progression. These mechanics include: The dash, the x-ray, the wall, and the trail. We're also implementing a stamina bar to balance out the pulse. Now instead of a pulse on every ability, the player must be careful not to use all of her stamina at once or else they will go through an exhaust period. The idea here is that the game doesn't punish you so often and hard on every time you use an ability, and it gives the player more agency in how they use their abilities in combination.  Secondly in terms of progression, we plan to make this game a little more linear than we originally planned. Now each level may have multiple ways to get to the memento, but the player must complete a level before going onto the next level. This makes our lives easier as level designers because now we have more control on when the player has an ability. 

CONTENT WITH HOURS

• Concept-ing level design alone, and overall progression of the game (4 hours)
• Collaborating with TheOtherMatt™ on a lobby and tutorial level for the dash (5 hours)
• Team Meeting (1 hour)
• Creating a level design for the x-ray level (3 hours)

WORKFLOW EXAMPLES

The overall progression of the game. The idea here is that the lobby is the start, and all levels split out from the center.

POSITIVE OUTCOMES

• We have concrete ideas of the mechanics and overall structure of the game
• We have a solid idea of how we want the new tutorial and lobby will look like

NEGATIVE OUTCOMES

• We're making pretty drastic changes from the original game in terms of new mechanics and style of game play. We're focusing more on maneuverability which shows off our fast-paced style game. However it'll probably require a lot of play testing to iron our these new mechanics

NEXT TASKS

This next week I will be focusing on creating more level designs / floorplans for the x-ray, the wall, and the trail. Now that we have mechanics locked in, it's just about creating the space that we can experiment with these new ideas. I might also work on the website a bit more from a marketing standpoint, like add a trailer and better access to the download.

TOTAL HOURS LOGGED THIS WEEK:  13 hours