Megaman Level V1 Feedback

 MEGAMAN LEVEL V1 

LOGAN VAN DYNE

The first video game levels that people were able to create were simplistic and did not have as much

room to work with as current games do. Level designers had to work with their limitations to create

entertaining levels which teach the player and make the game they are playing entertaining to both

watch and experience. Mega Man is a good example of games which take advantage of this, still being

able to have a great amount of variety and customization for the levels provided, leading to unique

and entertaining learning experiences, for both the player, and the level designer themself. 

Working within these limitations, we created a tutorial-style level in a western theme, ensuring we implemented a good amount of mechanics to teach the player in a safer environment before throwing them in with enemies and additional challenges. My level takes place in a Western Mineshaft, which leads the player to travel downwards through different tunnels and levels to reach the end goal. Along the way, the player has to face numerous obstacles and enemies throughout the mine, including falling platforms, quicksand, and destroyable walls. 



Many of the challenges faced during the process of creating the Western Mine level were purely editor based. The application we used to create these levels was immensely small compared to our monitor size, and for a long time, I was unable to figure out how to make it full-screen. It was only at the very end of the project that a solution was found, which led to the level itself being much smaller than it would have been if I had more screen space to work with. The small screen also led to accidental closings of the application a few times, but other than that, the creation of the level itself went rather smoothly. 



The design of the level was purposely made to not have many dead-ends or branching paths, making the circulation and path easy for the players to follow without getting lost or needing to retrace their steps too often. Initially, the falling blocks did cause an issue, as they would crush the player on accident, so I added a ladder to the fall so that this would be avoided. Checkpoints were utilized mostly in the parkour areas, as the enemies implemented were rather easy to deal with, especially considering the difficulty being geared towards a tutorial aspect of the level. Players had no issues defeating enemies, and they only struggled with the parkour segment at the very end.



After playtesting, there were two common themes from the players on how to improve the level. They thought that the difficulty and pacing of the level was perfect, especially for a tutorial level, and that it only needed to be expanded. Considering the amount of time it took to complete the level, this is perfectly reasonable feedback, as it was difficult to gauge how long to make a level so that it would take 10 minutes to complete. Player suggestions included adding more enemies, expanding the level, and adding more parkour segments, while making them more difficult to match with the final one, which gave players the most trouble. 


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