I'd like to make this extra blogpost to talk a bit about the design desicions I made for Cube Blast. If you want to know what game I'm talking about, try it out here:
http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/cube-blast/36412/
The placement of the player was a very important thing. I used to have the player start in the middle of the screen, but there were a few things wrong with that.
First of all you couldn't really see anything except for the red block you control and a large white/grayish area around you. This taught the player virtually nothing about the surroundings and how the map worked.
Secondly, if the player encountered an enemy it would charge right for the player without any warning. The player would be given almost no time to respond before getting hit. On top of that, being in the middle would cause 4 enemies to come at the player at once and arrive at pretty much the same time.
So placing the player in the middle was no good. I instead decided to place the player to the right inbetween two blocks:
So... why is this important?
First of all, the player can see that to his right is a dark gray area together with two dark gray blocks. Assuming the player does not know anything about our game yet, this is all he can deduce from this situation: there is a light gray area and a dark gray area. The player is given a bit of time to figure things out and detect that the red block is in fact the character he is controlling. After a little while a green block appears that is moving towards the player. It seems to be coming from that little indentation in the dark gray line to the right. If the player does not move at this point, the green block will always collide with the wall before reaching the player. This will teach the player that those dark gray areas are in fact walls you cannot pass through. Furthermore, it gives the player a little bit more time to respond before being attacked by the green enemy.
Now it is time to take action! The green block comes closer and closer so the player has to try buttons to destroy it. At that point something appears in the corner that should draw the player's attention:
Intrigued by this mysterious blue aura I expect the player to head there and investigate. The aura spawns in the middle only the first time the player encounters it. All the other times the aura is randomly spawned. As the player heads over there and enters the blue aura, he suddenly changes color. This should inform the player that something should be different and it has to do with being inside that blue aura.
If the player manages to kill one of the enemies within this blue aura text appears on the screen: "Knowledge + 50". So apparantly that accomplished something. Simultaneously the knowledge meter in the upper right corner is updated to show the newly achieved knowledge amount. This should teach the player that he can earn something called "Knowledge" from killing enemies. After going at it for a while a non-experienced player should not have killed all the enemies before the aura disappears.
This time, it does not say the "Knowledge + 50" text on the screen when the player kills enemies and the knowledge counter isn't updated. This conveys to the player that apparantly now you do not receive knowledge. At this point I expect the players to make the connection between earning knowledge and being within that aura(it's all deliberately blue).
These were some of the design decisions I made in the first level of Cube Blast. I hope I showed you a bit more of the designing process of making games and that you found it interesting enough to read through.
For questions, feedback or requests I can always be reached at:
indiestepsblog@gmail.com
