This is the third version of this assignment, this time the rules were changed and we were given an internal goal, an external goal, and some themes. Our external goal was to make money (make a game that will be played a lot), our internal goal was to make a level playable in 20 minutes that was a decent challenge for players, and the themes were Aliens and prison break.
I made a level where human heroes break out of prison during an Alien invasion. Walls are destroyed, prisoners are released, and havoc is upon the prison. Naturally the heroes goal is simply to escape alive. Ryan and Chris, two of my classmates, playtest the game. They chose the Mage and Warrior respectively. Before continuing on, the instructor purposely made the rules broken so that the students, as Level Designers, had to carefully adjust their maps accordingly.
What went correctly in this level was that it offered a decent challenge. I gave my enemies good stats for health and attack so that they posed genuine threats to the players. Not only did I do this, but with the interesting story the level had, I was able to make multiple different types of enemies that had to be fought off with very different strategies. The players found this interesting and reacted with excitement. There were enemies that came in large groups but individually were weak, there were large overbearing aliens whos melee attacks were devastating but could be killed from far away, and there were sniping enemies that could end the game with a good angle on your team. This was largely inspired by Halo, which in my opinion has some of the most interesting enemy dynamics any game has to offer. While I know these enemies could be expanded, improved, and balanced more, I think I was starting on the right track to creating an interesting sandbox for players to interact with. This kept the players engaged, unlike other levels which often felt like running into similar rooms with the same enemies, only different stats.
What went wrong for this level was that it was too long, just as the players reached the boss fight the twenty minutes were up. Even after playtesting it myself it did not compare to the inherent slowness and learning of new players to my game. This misjudgment meant my players never were able to try out my boss fight, which had some new ideas along with it. I can improve this likely by cutting out one or two parts of the map. For example, one part of the map the players can choose to loot nearby cellars to find items that will help them. While it was important to me that the players found three items (to introduce the three types of items they could pick up), I didn't need to put one item per room. It would have been quicker to have only two rooms, with either one having two items and the other one, or one having three items and the other having none. Additionally, the enemy just before the boss fight is mostly unnecessary and can probably be cut out. These changes likely would have left an extra five minutes for the players to complete the boss fight.
Overall this was my favorite level I made in this assignment. If I were to continue this I would want to expand on enemies as well as build some more fun rooms to fight in. I would also choose a different setting as a prison setting is very restricting. The players were never confused, they just needed time to experiment with items and room mechanics. They also were never frustrated by the difficulty, if anything they seemed to enjoy it.
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