I have barely started making my game, but I have all the essential movement controls and physics in place. And I am happy with how the player moves, and how high he jumps, etc.
I haven’t been coding or using Unity in years, so I’m currently struggling with making player health, and enemy AI. I’ve watched tutorials, but I still need a lot more time to actually understand and figure out how to modify the scripts in the tutorials, to suit my needs.
So should I start designing my levels at this stage? I really want to start making most of the game, but I fear that if I implement the enemies later, I will have to modify all my levels. I know roughly the amount of enemies each level should have, and all the other components which I have not yet implemented, such as coins and collectibles.
If I design my rough levels on paper, with enemy placements and their movement, will I be fine building the levels, without having to have the enemies fully built in the engine yet?
Also, since I’m still pretty much a noob. Has anyone got any tips or guidelines to follow while designing levels? (The game is going to be a 2D side-scrolling platformer)
How do you know how high your character should jump without the level, and vice versa? Level design isn’t a separate process, it should be done in parallel on a constant basis with the game, or your game WILL suck.
Evolve the prototype (level + code) up until you think you really nailed the fun then you can plan this stuff out easily.
I have a sort of test level in Unity, that I’m currently working with. With all the terrain objects, that I will use later for my levels. Basically I have all the mechanics and physics figured out using that test level. But I don’t have actual levels that I could have people play, and reach an objective.
The game’s concept is pretty much already there. All that I’m missing is immersion (aka enemies, collectibles, puzzles). I’m planning on making it an emotional game, and I’ll use the environment and atmosphere more than anything. The enemies and stuff will just be there to keep the players entertained while they discover the lore.
Also, the game is tile based, so it’s constructed of square sprites sitting on top of each other, as the ground. So as long as it’s possible to jump on 1 square, it’ll be possible for the rest of the game.
The issue is that people don’t play a test level. Test levels are useful to make sure things are functional, but making them fun is an iterative process.
In my current primary project the mechanics and level design have had several major iterations in tandem. A change to mechanics necessitates a change in level design, and from that I learn more about how I can improve the mechanics, which means the level design needs to be updated…