Basic Info

Metroidvania Project - 2D Level Design

The Toxicity in My City - By Team NVR HOT

Student project: Semester End (UG Year 2, Sem 2)
Duration: 4 months

Project Type: Team (3 Designers, 2 Artists)

Role and Key Responsibilities:

Lead Level Designer
- Making each Level Segment Made by the Level Designers work together and are consistent in scale
- Designing my own section of the level
- Maintaining the pacing of the game from area to area by giving feedback to the respective Level Designers so they can adjust the difficulty to match the desired difficulty curve.
- Give Designers requirements and guidelines to base their Levels around and maintain the Game Vision.
- Lighting and set decoration throughout the game to maintain consistency and enforce the environmental stprytelling
Narrative Designer
- Write the game story
- Be the vision holder for the visual storytelling and give thematic requirements to the artists. The Backgrounds, tiles, and other cosmetic elements of the game should reflect and enforce the story taking place in that section of the game
- Keep all the narrative documents up to date and the team updated on the requirements from their roles and departments
- Direct and Edit the game trailer

Constraints:

Gameplay:
- 30 minutes of gameplay
- 4 Ttraversal abilities
- 3 Distinct Enemy Types and Behaviours
- 2 Treversal Obstacles
- 2 Boss Fights
- 2 Distinct Areas of the map
- Classic Metroidvania-style Level Design (Cannot traverse to certain parts of the map without unlocking required abilities)
Storytelling:
- Environmental Storytelling
- Story and thematic consistency between gameplay and visuals
Time: 4 Months

Project Brief:

A 2D platformer was to be made in a span of 4 months which satisfies a number of technical and thematic constraints. One of the main pillars of the game has to be backtracking to give the Metroidvania type feel using the level design and progression in the game. Each designer was to be marked individually for their contribution to the level design and if they were able to match the game feel they planned from that part of the game.

Constraints

Title Screen

Rough Level Layout

The Paper Level Design made to visualize the different areas of the map, its relative scale, interesting gameplay scenarios and General Game and Level Flow

Mini-Boss Battle

Title Screen

Sumary

Process

Summary:

Our protagonist, a notorious teenager and local daredevil was on his way back home from school in the small town of Quahog. While trying to switch out the mix tapes from your walkman, you fumble and drop the latest and greatest volumes into an open drain beside you. There were very few things you cared about in life those three mix tapes were one of them. To retrieve your labor of love you jump into the manhole in front of you. You keep following the pipes deeper and deeper into the sewers leading into a few abandoned subway stations on the way. While making your way through the sewers you discover an underground gang who had made the sewers and the subway stations their home. The deeper you go into the pipes the more the punks get weirder. You start realizing that the green glowing goop all around the sewers was infecting them and somehow your music playing in the background was increasing their strength and intelligence. If they weren’t stopped the infection would spread to the surface which meant your friends, family and everyone in his town would turn into those ugly goop-covered zombies. You gripped your bat clenched your butt and get ready for some skull-bashing action, they didn’t call you ‘Hard Hitting Harry’ for nothing right?

Process:

Pitching and Preproduction

The project started off with the team pitching ideas and sharing inspirations from other metroid like game to list down features or elements we definitely want in our game. Looked for visual inspirations and made mood boards to lock down the game vision and serve as the guide to start the concept design and prototyping phase. The Designers brainstormed and finalized the paper Level Design in this phase, which included the types of enemies, the level flow, the traversal abilities and the critical path.

Level Design and Prototyping

The Designers finalized and prototyped their Levels on that game engine while the designer in charge of the programming prototyped the navigation. The artists designed the characters, obstacles and rough animation. The major game features were brought to a functioning level and discussed at the end of the phase.

Production

The levels were all combined and the consistency issues were pointed out to each designer. The artists were given proportions for the final background and the final asset list was updated. The traversal values and flow were to be nailed down in this stage and the whole game was brought to a functioning state allowing players to play from start to finish including all the scene changes.

Playtests & Polishing

The last state was about fixing bugs, small traversal polishes and visual improvements. The game was playtested by classmates, instructors and students from other batches and disciplines to get general feedback and not just feedback from game designers.

Take Aways: