The Three Trails

Concepts

As previously stated, this project had each member come up with a section of a level. Each level had to flow into the next, mine was the middle level connecting everything. This ultimately gave me the idea of 3 sections within my level; the outskirts, the village, and a military training ground. Each section was made to progressively get tougher as the player continued; the outskirts had fewer jumps and no worries about death, the village had more jumps but falling would result in death, and the military grounds had very precise jumps with little room for failure.

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I focused more on the village portion of the level since it didn't require the need to transition between the two other levels. I wanted this village to feel off for the player since the first thing they see is the village barricaded off. As the player explores the area they will notice as well that no one is around, almost as if everyone got up and left.

Graybox

Within the first section, I originally planned on having a chasm that the player had to jump across in order to get to the front gates of the village. I decided against this since I didn't want players to have a sense of death at the very start of the level due to small jumps. Instead, I decided for the player to spawn In the chasm. This allowed for a seamless transition from sewer to my level. It also gave a sense of scale to the player as soon as they made it out. When they do, players will see the village barricaded off, but a small opening within the walls that can be jumped through.

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The second section revolved around getting up to rooftops and other high-up places. This allowed me to create unique actions the player would have to perform, such as jumping from light posts, walking on clothes wire, and the difficult windmill jump. Since this was the main section of my level, I wanted it to have more jumps than the rest of the sections. I also implemented special jumps that players can do with white tarps. This gave the player an insane jump boost into the air, allowing them to clear certain jumps. With this in mind, I added certain jumps that a player could do to skip or speedrun the level. 

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The last section I wanted to be all about pinpoint accuracy since it was the toughest. Putting in small logs the players had to jump on and collision boxes around the watch tower panels allowed for a more challenging section. The section would end with another hole in the wall which players would jump through in order to get to the forest level of the game.

Final

With each section of the level done, I added more detail to the background such as; mountains, trees, and other types of scenery. I decided to do this because of the white tarps around the level. If a player were to jump up, they were now able to see the "fake" background giving the illusion that there is more out there besides the village. It also allowed the level to look nice and gave the sense that the village was in a secluded area near the mountains and forest. I also added more collision blocks just so that the player couldn't get out of bounds.