Assignment 6 Conclusion

Tuesday has been and gone, work handed in and everyone's work reviewed in an informal discussion. Everyone did very well with the assignment, and it was great to see what sort of levels were being made.

What I didn't enjoy though was having to stand in front of the class and explain the map. And this isn't necessarily because I am shy... because really, I'm not. I'm just not capable to thinking up a talk on the spot, and I was simply caught offguard and unable to express my reasoning for the level being structured as it was. Hopefully I can do that now.

In essence, I felt that I bit off a little more than I could chew with the level, setting it in an outdoor environment, although I still believe that I worked the best I could and made something that with some further development could be made into something fun and challenging. And the one thing that I really want to get off my chest is that although I did not place too many placements specific to certain classes, if one is to look into the level design of the maps already in Mann Versus Machine, they are not made to the same standard as say, a capture point or payload map. There is not quite so much emphasis on creating class specific routes and that is because the AI used in the mode follow fixed paths... fixed paths that can differ from wave to wave, but fixed paths none the less, and with very few exceptions there are not spots or paths that can only be accessed via double jump or rocket/sticky jump. I made the level so that certain points COULD be rocket jumped and certain distances double jumped, but at no point did I want to create an area that could potentially prevent robots from being able to reach players.

I made some poor design choices along the way, and the more I look at the map now, the more I wonder if I really should have had the path go back on itself toward the end... or if the level is simply too long in length. In any scenario, I'm satisfied with the assignment, and if anything it only gives me the drive to go back to the drawing board and refine the design some more. I made the mistake of ending up working on the fly rather than drawing out alternate ideas... one I shall try not to repeat next time.