Designing Interactive Displays Development Blog - Week 2

 

   This week started off with me and the designers on our team getting together and brainstorming ideas for our new platformer game. One of our designers, Chance, pitched a simple collectathon platformer in a similar vein to Banjo-Kazooie. Considering the simplicity of the game presented alongside the versatility of the design I agreed that we should utilize this game as a good basis for our other upcoming project. 

   A few days after that meeting I decided to get to work on designing a possible first map for this game. The general idea I wanted to go for was a map that could convey most of the major aspects of gameplay that are required for a platformer. Moving around a linear plane, jumping on platformers, various collectables, etc. Though I also wanted to make the map at least seem a little interesting to play around as, again, it needs to convey the major staples a platformer requires.

   I also tried to convey various important gameplay elements as well. Checkpoints were one that I put around the area. Another were movement paths for enemies so that the programmers will know how to program them. I also wanted to add some bottomless pits since those are pretty important in platformers. I'm hoping all of this conveys all the important aspects we'd need in a game such as this as it'll likely end up being a major basis for the tool we're going to build together come the middle of the semester.

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