Journal Entry 4

16.3.2023

1 hour 30 minutes took the edit of the one-page design. I added additional information, including the circumstances of a fail state and its effect on the game objects, the use of interactables and level terrain in general.

Notes:

I actually like the game being more about level orientation than any additional and more complicated mechanics. The layout of the level I really like, just the implementation has to live up to it. ^^ I added a new mechanic of a box that functions as a jump-pad, because I like games that are very loose with player restrictions and can reward the player's creativity in unique ways. There are two of them, and they are positioned in a way that deepens two of the major shortcuts in the game, but could be pushed around the level and used for different ones as well. :)

One major issue of the one page design that I'm aware of is the depth/scale perception, i.e. not being able to tell which jumps are possible and which aren't. With the scale of the environments I'm doing, that would be really hard to showcase, as with a tile map for example each of the squares would be absurdly small even on an A3 paper, defeating the purpose of it at all. I thought about adding arrows showcasing which jumps are possible and which aren't, but refrained from doing so because of the monstrous clutter it would create in the level outline. I think on such a small level, production wise, it could be specified later on how exactly each of the jumps functions, in a separate document. I don't know how such a detailed description of the whole level could fit on the page itself, or more importantly, if it's really that important at all. Even from the examples given at the lesson and from our homework, one-page designs seem to be used more as a general guideline? Rather than an extensive explanation of every jump. Maybe I'm mistaken.