Level Design - Thus Far

After some procrastination, I've decided to upload my progress on this assignment/task since we started on Thursday. Because my ideas have changed as I continued to redesign my level, and I've lost some of the nervousness I felt at the beginning... that isn't to say that I feel like what I've got right now is perfect... I'm just satisfied that I've gotten something that actually resembles a playable level, and that was through the act of drawing, researching, and redrawing to produce better results.

The drawings might well provide a better idea of what I'm doing than retyping the information, so as ever... be sure to click on the images to get a slightly larger view. I can at least say here that I was initially working with a space islands idea, but as the work progressed I found that I couldn't fit so many elements into the level.. and so settled upon an island environment proper, using the Socotra Islands as a rough template - the environment is distinctive. Because I think but don't draw in colour, I have also imagined that the colour pallate would be like that of the film "The Thief and the Cobbler - Recobbled" ... a really nice but tragically unfinished animation. I loved it's use of colour.

This was the initial idea drawin up in class. It doesn't really look playable

This page was more about me trying to work out what I actually wanted to achieve, looking into how I could use the designated abilities to influence the structure and design of the level I was trying to make.

Second attempt at level design - I liked it at first, but the more I worked on it the less clear I became. I was working with a multiple path principle, but I felt the paths were too seperated, and it just didn't feel right.

I went back to the drawing board to work out my ideas some more. I wanted to make sure that there were multiple paths, and that the player would get more than one chance to avoid taking the lowest path whilst making it harder to stay on the higher paths.

Third attempt at level design, and one that I soon abandoned. I felt that I was on the right track with this design though, with the high platform being more difficult and skill based... but I felt that the lower segment was underdeveloped.

Where I am at as of the 22nd October. Whilst I'm sure there is much more to be done, I feel like I've gotten a result that could almost be playable.