CAGD 270 - MegaMan Level 2

 CAGD 270 - Mega Man Level 2 - (3/27/23)

• What went right for my level based on what I've noticed during the 5 playtests, was the sense of direction the players were supposed to go. None of them had difficulty trying to find their way around and all were able to go in one single direction to reach to the end of the level. I was able to successfully create a great pathway that would not get players lost and just simply keep progressing and moving forward through the level. Something that went wrong during the playtests was the areas that may have had too many enemies for the player to roam through. Some of them mentioned that they were taking way to much damage in certain areas and should be toned down. I did notice that when players were around the first tree house with the health pack. I placed down a large health pack near the high-damage area for a reason, but it kind of defeats the purpose since the player is forced to take a lot of damage just to reach it.

Area with high damage to player to be improved upon

• Something I will definitely improve with this second level would be to tone down the enemy count in those with high-damage areas. So then the players would be able to smoothly cruise the level, but not too much since this level needs to have some sort of difficulty. Perhaps I can add some more gadgets or parkour that the player can roam through. Another small detail that could be improved was the last spike room towards the end of the level where the player has to make a parkour jump, but if they fall, they are placed into a spike room and take damage. The thing is that the spikes spin around and the player can fall out of the room, which was not intentional. So would they have to jump off a platform to restart, which does not seem right. I can perhaps add layers of spikes so it can eliminate the player faster rather than falling out of the room. A player mentioned that Mega Man should not start with all the weapons at the start and should be able to pick them up on the map so it makes the player feel achieved when they reach an area with a new weapon. So the weapon pick-ups can be something to be improved on for this level. Most of the challenges were presented appropriately to the skill level of the player. For the players that never played Mega Man before they were able to distinguish easily what each block and enemy does when they encounter them.

Last Spike room before last fight

• The critical pathway was obvious for the players and they were all able to distinguish a pathway on where exactly to go and how to reach the end of the level. Not one player got stuck during gameplay or went backward by accident trying to reach the end. The overall flow of the level was fairly clear, but possibly the large mass of enemies killed the momentum and could be better improved upon. The main circulation elements used to move around were ladders and an air pusher. It was obvious where the players were supposed to go and I watched them all correctly go where they needed to go. If they were stuck in some place, they were all able to get out of their ditches and continue moving forward successfully. Overall, the level worked out pretty well and could just use some minor tweaks in enemies and possibly make it a bit longer to give it that solid final touch as a solid level two map.

First checkpoint with treehouse with a health pack bottom left