Level design, keep it the same while being inspired?

N

Nexusrex

Guest
(I know, the title may be weird. Apologizes in advance, bad English D: )

Hello there guys, how is it going around?
Level design was never a forte for me, so I usually play other games and watch videos to get some ideas, inspirations and all that sort of stuff.
By time I did manage to make two levels in my game, and working on the third I realized something. After watching some other games that had a bit of a different structure (As example, games that doesn't have some stage select system, so the difficulty would be increasing.) I started to implement some stuff from these games (Example: Branching paths, power-up weapons that are time-limited and I'm not having these as a main thing with my game), it looks cool but in the same time I can feel a bit of a difficulty spike.
So in case that something similar happens, what you'd do? Keeping the levels as they are, change the new level or try to rework on the old levels?

Thanks in advance!
 
B

Biddum

Guest
I try to plan out every level before creating a game. It is really difficult to do especially when you see inspiring designs. If you have several "Worlds", try to scope out what new game mechanic may appear in each world and organize them in a sense of increasing difficulty. For example, Level 1-5 has basic enemies and no branching paths, then level 6 has a very basic branching path, so the player is introduced to the mechanic, and then level 10 has a more complex branching path, etc... I hope this helps!
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Don't make levels in chronological order. You will get better at making levels as you progress, and the game gets more fleshed out as you figure out what ideas to focus on. If you make earlier levels first, those will be the worst levels in the game when you're done. And first impressions are important, because it's not unheard of to lose 20% of players between starting a new savefile and them beating the first boss.
upload_2018-6-28_12-45-52.png
If your first levels aren't good, players simply won't play long enough to reach the good ones. And if those players happens to be reviewers... well, you just got yourself tons of bad review scores.
 
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