Breanna and Emily played my DnD Map v2. This time the match went by much quicker and I was asked little, if any, questions. This was an improvement from my last game. However there still were ways I could have improved. After playing their games I realized there were some tools I hadn't tried using with the Roll20 website. Using these tools could have my my level more interesting, such as fog of way mechanics, or individual buttons for abilities. Besides those two improvements I feel like my level achieved what it was meant to, which is teach the players how to play.
What I would like to add to my level is more functionality for the experience to be even smoother and easier for players. By adding ability buttons on the top left for each player a player can not only know what they have the choice to do, but also do that thing with one click of a button, rather than having to find out which die they must roll themselves. Also, the players can see the entire level upon starting. What becomes more interesting is when players can only see what's going on inside their own rooms. By using layers on the website you can choose to hide certain rooms, which makes for a more unpredictable level playthrough. I think this ultimately will make the level more engaging for players.
The challenges I used worked well since they were basic mechanics that would be reused in the game, but exercised in a way that is small and easy to learn from. This allows to player to quickly start understanding how the game and levels work. There was only one path to travel down for players making this level very linear, but also I think this is something that can differ in future levels. It was important for this level to not feature many decisions as I think that would make most players anxious and hesitant to make interesting decisions.
The flow of the level was relatively slow and consistent. The size was small though so there was constant action and forwards momentum always, not many things stopped the players, except for the lava pits, which provided for some small level of decision making. While these didn't change the overall pathway to travel, they offered a small shortcut and potential avoidance of enemies. This came at taking a chance and rolling a die to jump over the pits, which mixed the flow of the map up slightly.
There weren't many circulation elements but there were doorways that controlled where players could enter. Lava pits also drew out curved pathways to walk down with little room to breath, making it a requirement to defeat enemies along the way. These elements helped make it very obvious where players were supposed to go. Most mechanics didn't need to be explained as they were provided in the assignment details. For all of my new additions short descriptions were provided alongside them on the map. These descriptions weren't invasive and took little time for players to read.
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