Marbelous Development: the Musings of a Bad Level Designer

So in my previous post, I mentioned that I could begin prototyping movement and start designing level "chunks". I'm just calling small bits of a level that involve a particular idea or challenge that.

Part of why I started working on this project was to work on my level design skills (I usually focus more on the programming side of things). So, I grabbed a stack of index cards and started scribbling. Here are a few:

These by no means represent what actual gameplay will be like, but are merely ideas.

I admit that coming up with a huge world composed of level chunks using only the mechanics I had in place from prototyping (wall riding and jumping, bounce pads) had proven difficult. So, I added some more easy-to-implement mechanics such as flowing water and platforms that topple, and designed more chunks.

I've made sure not to get too carried away with this, since I don't want too massive of a world or create a larger demand for graphical elements, since this is a solo project and I have other projects already underway.

Keeping it detailed just enough to get everything that's happening in the chunk was the goal for these. I wanted to leave room for change and only illustrate a basic idea of what type of "gameplay moment" the player would be experiencing.