DAY 40
Work on the second part of the second level has started and it proved to be a fluid, smooth going endeavor. In this portion of the level I've reintroduced the collapsing platforms and paired them with the grappling hook mechanic. These two, along with some solid rocks and solid ground, seem to make a good pair.
Here's how the second part looks like so far:
And here is an aerial view of the entire area done until now (with a zipline in the lower left corner)
After extensive playtesting it, this new section has shown a few moments where it feels tense and "in-the-nick-of-time" and a moment where you feel like you need to be extra cautious about how you prepare your jump. And believe me, it was a lot of testing: I placed a prop, tested it. I placed another prop, tested it. And so on until the end of what was done.
So far, about half of this second part is implemented. And I feel that this section is where the real challenges start to appear. But then again, if it's slightly tense for me, I think it would be far more difficult for the player who plays the game for the first time. But no need to be talking out of my butt, this will need to be playtested with other people.
You might notice an untextured rock-like thing. I did make a quick and dirty attempt to make my own rock assets for this section with Blender. This was done by applying a Voronoi modifier to a cube and toying around with the shape until it resembled a rock. To those who use Blender, yes I did use the default cube and did not delete it. Shocking, I know.
This quick-and-dirty exercise opened the way to making my own pipeline in regards to rock assets. I did not came up with this method, I watched a tutorial and I believe it's something "standard" when using Blender. From Blender, I'll import into zBrush to whip it into shape and then import it into Unreal to be used in my project. Yay.
For the record, I do have a background in modeling with 3ds max, but it's way too expensive to use on a commercial project if I'm a solo gamedev with basically no budget. So I've started working with Blender, because free and open source and because why not torture myself while I'm at it? What could go wrong?
Anyway, back to the level.
I feel it could be better...a lot better actually, but I can't really put my finger on it. Sure, at first play seemed OK, as I mentioned above. It felt tense, but it doesn't look tense. I feel that there is a disconnect between how the level looks versus how the level plays.
I mean it plays nice (could be nicer... a lot nicer) and you actually feel the tension but when you look at the level, it really doesn't inspire anything. It looks cheap (dare I say clumsy) but it definitely does not play cheap or clumsy, at times it's pretty unforgiving. It feels like an understated level, if that makes any sense, like it plays a lot better than it looks. Well, the only thing to get to the bottom of this is to playtest the hell out of it and see what's missing.
Also, I keep coming back to the idea that more mechanics should be used here. Or environmental hazards. Hmmm, maybe this one too. Or it could just be all in my head, I'm tired.
So far, that's all I've got. See ya in the next post, bye.