Rachel Folasayo Oladoyin
Game Designer, Level Designer and Artist
3D Platformer
This was a 3D platformer level I made, that was mostly focused on properly teaching, testing and challenging different game mechanics present in the level. I used a 3D platformer toolkit so that I could focus solely on the level design without needing to worry about art or programming.
Project Duration: 3 weeks
Team Size: 1 person
Platform: PC
My Roles: Sole Level Designer
My responsibilities
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Laid out the initial planning for the level, mostly involving when and how I was going to teach, test and challenge the player.
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Grey boxed the level.
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Conducted playtests and organized and applied the feedback I got from those playtests.
Design Process overview
Early process work
My early design process involved:
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Planning out the beats and cadence of the level
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Carrying out playtests and iterating on the level based on the results
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Ensuring each verb was taught, tested and challenged throughout the level
Later process work
Our later design process involved:
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Ensuring there were adequate signifiers throughout the level
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Polishing the mechanics and doing final playtests to make sure the level was running smoothly
Detailed Design Process
Beats and Cadence
Before developing the level, I planned out the level's beats and flow using a spreadsheet. I did this so I could ensure I was properly teaching, testing and challenging the player on each mechanic that was introduced throughout the level. This involved laying out the beat, and also charting out the rise and fall of difficulty I wanted to have throughout the level in order to keep the player in the flow state.
Gameplay beat and flow document. Click to enlarge.
Playtests
Once I had a greybox down that followed the beat spreadsheet, it was time to start running playtests. For the playtests, I developed some playtest questions so I could understand what kind of experience my level was actually providing for the player, and how that contrasted with the kind of experience I wanted to give the player.
Screenshot from the playtesting document showing the questions I asked after the playtest, and the answers I received. Click to enlarge.
Polish
The later process work for this level really just involved ensuring there were adequate signifiers throughout the level and that the player was properly communicated with. I also performed a few final playtests to ensure the mechanics were being taught, tested and challenged properly, and to ensure that there were no bugs or issues I hadn't caught earlier.
Challenges
My biggest challenge when making this level was properly communicating with the player since I had a limited selection of ways to signify affordances to the player. I wasn't in control of the sound and I had limited control over the visuals, so I had to be very creative when signifying things to the player.
Lessons learned
This taught me that even with limited tools available to me, it's still very possible to communicate effectively with the player. It also taught me that visual signifiers can be extremely effective when placed in the right locations and used intuitively.