Project Hero
Roles: Game Designer, Level Designer // Project Timeline: 3 Months // Team: 4 People
Overview
A retro pixel art 2D-Platformer. The player is a lowly slime, and they must use the slime's unique movement and stickiness to traverse through the underground.
Contributions
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Designed all of the levels in Project Hero
- Implemented most levels in Project Hero
- Concept-designed gameplay mechanics
Design
This project's conception revolved around the main character - a lowly slime scouring the underground in hopes of surviving. We wanted to design a gloomy, dangerous environment that provided a challenge to the player. I achieved this by breaking up one level into multiple, separated sections. I started by paper prototyping unique challenges the player would face and ordered them to ensure the gameplay flow would be fluid.
On paper these levels looked like they would play well, but the first prototype we playtested proved otherwise. A challenge we were given in development was to create a heatmap of our level. We then used the telemetry data from our playtesters to isolate the problematic points in the level to make appropriate changes.
Learning Outcomes
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Developing interesting levels in a 2D project
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The process of in-depth playtesting to fix problems in levels
- Applying signifiers to communicate the level to the player
