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This week, I continued to work on Day of the Piñata's level design, trying to get as much of the game's features into the playable session as possible.

 

What I did was to attach a couple of background images for our game (made by Erik) into a single large image that represented a whole level. Together, the backgrounds created an image over 37 000 pixels wide. I then added images of enemies and objects to the picture so that programmers could know where to place each enemy or object the level features.

We had decided early on in the development to not rely on a randomized spawning system, as this might have messed up the relationships between objects, enemies and the piñata, as well as the level's tempo (I'll get into this more further below). Therefore, we resorted to a "manual" level design, with hand placed enemies, objects and power ups.

While we have a wide arrange of different objects and enemies by now, I chose to only use the skull as a small-sized object, the basket of flowers for medium and the parade floats for large ones. The idea is that I will return next week and switch out the items to objects that fit the background better later, but for now it's the gameplay that's in focus.

Also, the parade participants still haven't got any graphics, so I made simple purple triangles as placeholders.

 

Developing on my idea from last week, the main goal was to create the tempo variation, or pacing, of the level.

Some of the fundumentals of level design includes creating an experience that is neither to hard, nor to easy for the player. This is done mainly by variating the tempo of the level by making certain parts more hectic and more difficult than others, and other parts calmer with less resistance from the game world. The tempo then constantly shifts up and down throughout the level to prevent the player from experiencing the level as stiff, or repetetive.

 

Since the placement of all the "physical" features in Day of the Piñata are key to this, I made sure not to just mindlessly plonk them down on the background image. This is why I'd made the sketches of the level in the past weeks, so the task ended up more or less consisting of looking through my sketches and then placing the objects and enemies according to them.

For example below are pictures of three different parts of the level, each designed for a different tempo:

 

The first is a picture of the very beginning of the level. The player does not encounter any enemies here, so she has the ability to test out the controls without any stress. More importantly, she can take her time investigating the  objects on the screen and will hopefully notice that she can smash the small object (the skull) but not the medium and big ones (the basket of flowers and parade float).

Furthermore, I''ve placed the player to the far left, indicating that the only way to progress is forward, to the right. When the player does progress to the right, the screen will pan witht he player and reveal the other objects. The three small objects should be enough to make the player grow one size, which then allows her to smash the medium sized object. This would effectively create a basic tutorial of the size system, without any instructions.

The second image represents somewhere at the middle of the level. By now, both children and parade participants have appeared. These are the game's enemies and will cause the piñata to lose candy upon contact. If the piñata lose all of it's candy, the game is over.

While the parade participants are a "brainless" enemy moving in a straight path to the left, the children have an AI that makes them move towards the player unless the piñata shoots a piece of candy. The child is then drawn to wherever the candy lands and will leave the screen as soon as they have gotten their sweets. In this particular part the children have started to appear in groups, which means it will take one candy for every child in the group to eleminate the threat.

 

This part is an example of challenging the player to think under pressure; the objects on the top and buttom will decrease the player's mobility, all the while the parade participants are moving closer on the middle. Apart from that, the player must fire away at least three pieces of candy to lure away the children. And that is challenged by the parade and objects that block the projectile's path.

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Lastly is a part late in the level. Here, the Day of the Dead festival is in full motion and a parade is underway.

The player must navigate through a number of different patterns of parade participants and parade floats to progress. The participants still move in a straight line to the left, but during this phase of the level the parade floats move as well. This was part due to create the feeling of the game being set in the middle of a big festival, and part to create an intense gameplay tempo during certain parts.

During these parts the player must avoid the parade participants, which form small holes where the player can slip through. Sometimes, like in the picture below, the holes are replaced with parade floats, which are only beatable if the piñata is at it's largest size.

 

While the placement of objects and enemies was no hard task preactically, (on a few occassions I changed the placement slightly if it didn't fit the size of the background) it was very time consuming. I ended up spending a major part of this week copying and pasting, zooming in and out of the image to see how much space available and trying to determine which groups of enemies and objects should be placed where.