Project B – Journal Entry 1

Date: 12.4.2021
Invested Hours: 240+ minutes
Activity: Creating new project. Trying to understand given one page design. Figuring out how to implement it, while trying to stay faithful to original ideas.
Outcome:  
First I tried to understand proposed one page design. It's quite simple as it's just couple of instant killing enemies and two puzzles. Puzzles are nice and simple. Page itself is trying to put emphasis on stealth, so I guess the level itself should be doable without alerting single enemy ?

So I moved to Unity, did the game kit import as it should be sufficient for everything this proposes. Through puzzles will need some coding, but nothing difficult.

First I tried to create tilemap layout for the level:

This is the moment I realized great flaw of the design, even with playing around in the gimp, I couldn't figure out how big different sections should be. In a level designed around stealth, this should be stated as it affect's player strategy, how he will approach enemies and puzzles.
Basically I had to figure out what size should each part of the level be. So I decided to go with default gamekit object sizes. Plus with knowledge that comfortable jump is around 5 tiles up and 8 tiles to side, it's quite easy to place object's so they are in good distance from each other.

Once I figured out sizes I scaled down the level to make it more tense for player, smaller level should feel better than big hollow places.
This lead me to one annoying problem I found out, for some reason changing camera field of view in gamekit level does not work. I did not figured out why, but I expect it to be blocked by some hidden interaction between camera and scripts... For now I decided to ignore it as it might not be necessary to change it...

During placing enemies, doors, platforms, keys (using tiles, much easier to change if they feel out of place) and testing how well the jumping around the enemy work, I realized there is problem with enemy that would be in 1st section at bottom-right. The place itself is strange and jumping in is problematic, but even if you figure out how to jump, the enemy would still discover you on your way back.  So I decided that to allow stealthy approach in whole level, it will be best to swap him with the pressure plate of the puzzle.

There were more small changes, that can be seen from the final tilemap picture, like little changed spawn position.

Space between first section and second section of the level, felt like that enemy is there just to look at me so I can't jump down ? So I think about extending the level a little, by making it heist (solve puzzles -> open final doors -> grab item -> return to start) But I might be overstepping the goal of this assignment with it. Through I really feel like it's missing something to make it more interesting, if the implementation goes well and I will have free time I will probably do it.

Second section got small changes and became smaller, enemy behind the doors changed supposed position a little from the design. As I was writing this I realized that I forget to put tiles representing keys behind the doors with enemy :D And I consider making the enemy near the second puzzle to actually move more than other will as right now it feels like he will be completely ignorable. and player will not need to strategize and time his jumps properly. 

With this I will end this journal entry. I might have not done a lot, but I figured out a lot about the level and I am confident that next journal might contain most of the level working. (not really, most likely I am going to stress myself with deadlines from other subjects :D and will not even finish first puzzle implementation)