Parasitic Sprint 5 Blog Post

Parasitic Level Design Post#5

My tasks in Sprint 5 focused on fleshing out my second level: "Level 4 - Dead Forest". The cards assigned to me this sprint are mostly rollovers from the last sprint with only a playtest card being newly assigned: 

• "As a level designer, I need to block out a large Dead Forest level that starts with our heros having to maneuver a maze before finding the exit that leads to an arena for a mini boss battle. (3)"
• "As a level designer, I need to play through my level to test for discrepancies or errors. (1)" [Sprint 4]
• "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established. (1)"
• "As a level designer, I need to create clear boundaries for the player to restrict going off path. (1)"
• "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established"
• "As a level designer, I need to playtest my level to check for discrepancies so the level flows smoothly. (1)" [Sprint 5]

For this sprint, I finished the block out for my level. This took a while since I also had to edit each tile to correspond to my annotated map. 

Block Out

Tile Map

Currently, I am populating the level with the newly added assets I requested in the asset list from the last sprint. Some problems I've encountered from this is figuring how to place the trees properly for a "forest" level but spaced far apart so that the player can move and see the other assets (such as enemies, buff tiles, and pickups) in the level. I also went back and removed the colorized trees and mainly used the leaf-less trees so the level corresponds to the theme of a "dead forest" 

After I implemented most of the assets, I realized I needed the terrain as well. So I played with the terrain editor in Unity, moved it to blender, edited it so it's low poly and colorized, and added it back into Unity. Now I can add assets around the terrain as well so the level and the terrain feel more intersected/fused and not just two separate pieces, which helps with immersion. Here are progress pictures of what I have so far:

Reached 271 trees and still need more for the terrain

Terrain

The cards I have left are: 

• "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established"
• "As a level designer, I need to create clear boundaries for the player to restrict going off path."
• "As a level designer, I need to playtest my level to check for discrepancies so the level flows smoothly." [x2]

I'm concurrently working on "As a level designer, I need to populate the Dead Forest level with current assets to get the tone of the level established" and "As a level designer, I need to create clear boundaries for the player to restrict going off path." For the next sprint, I'll be finishing up my forest level and moving on to playtesting it before it gets implemented into the build. Ciao for now.