Cave Prototype
Download Link
A small prototype where I tried to focus more on art than usual. The mechanics come from a previous project I had worked on, but I tweaked them to make it easier to control. In this game you have two abilities. You can create a platform midair, and you can punch the ground or walls to launch yourself or break certain walls.
Guided Freedom Through Level Design
Despite how short the level is, I wanted to give players a sense of exploration and discovery. Because of this I tried to avoid making the level too linear. Instead I gave players multple paths. But this can be a problem because the player could get lost and miss important content, like learning how to use certain abilities. Because of this I made it so that sometimes two different paths will end up going to the same place, and also certain paths can't be accessed until the player understands how to use a specific ability. This way the player feels like they're exploring the level on their own even though they're just following a path already set for them.
I could have also made it so that the players don't have access to certain abilities at the start, and have to unlock them by going somewhere. While this approach could work, I prefer to give the players all the abilities they need from the start, and design the game to teach them how to use these abilites as they play. This way when they unlock a new path, it feels more like something they earned rather than something that was given to them.
Gameplay Informing Visuals
For this prototype I tried to make the gameplay more visually interesting, but I also made sure to communicate gameplay ideas to the olayer through the visuals. For example, when the player is capable of doing a double jump, their cape turns yellow, the same color as the platform, which is the same color as the surface of the ground. This is to help them make the connection that they need to touch yellow ground to recharge their platform. Most of the ground is blue or gray. This is to make other more important elements stand out, like the pink spikes. I used a wall for the background, which sometimes opens up to reveal a background with a parallax effect. This creates a sense of depth, but since you're only able to see certain parts of the parallax background it makes more mysterious. It makes you wonder what could be behind the wall.
I also implemented a camera system that allowed me to have more control over how the camera moves in each section of the level. This way I make sure the player is always on sight while having a smooth camera movement.
Allowing for Player Expression
Something I wanted to do with the level design and the mechanics is allow the player to have different solutions to the same problem. It makes it more replayable since you can try to figure out better and faster ways of travresing the level. I like games that allow you to build up speed and keep it if you know what you're doing, so I made sure to include that in the game. I think there's soemthing almost inherently fun about going fast, but if you have to be skillful in order to go fast, that makes it even more satisfying.
