DnD Map V3 Prison Break

 Today in class we tested the third version of our DnD maps. This was also our final version for these DnD maps. For this map, we started at square one again and built a whole new map from the ground up using the knowledge and feedback that we had obtained from the previous 2 level designs. Usually, when we have playtested in the past, we have been in groups of three. However, there were an uneven amount of students in the classroom for my group to have 3 players. So I only had 1 player and he was Aidan L. who played two characters. The characters he selected were the Knight and the Mage.

The Image is of the entire map:

I was very excited to test out this map and all of its features. With that being said, many things went right during the playtesting of the level. In the first room I made the player face a somewhat challenging opponent so that they would lose health early on and use one of the potions that I had scattered all over the map. This would show the player how they can heal. I would say that this worked and went right because the player did lose health early and ended up using the potion. Something else that went right was the difficulty of the guards. I was worried that I might have made the guards too strong and that the player would die too easily. However, everything worked out where the player had to deal with a little bit of challenge and nothing more. The last thing that went right was the tripwire and breaker system. I told the player that he had to figure out a wire to not set off the tripwire system that I had put into the game. I thought that he would immediately go for the electricity/breaker and figure it out too quickly, however he did not do that and he ended up setting off the tripwire. This was good because then it provided a little bit more of a challenge into the mix which is exactly what I wanted. 

The image is of the player spawn area:

Even though some things went right, there were some things that didn’t go too great. The first thing that went wrong was that the prisoners (other enemies) were way too weak. I wanted them to pose as a bit of a challenge, but they ended up dying in one hit which was not what I was planning on. Another thing that went wrong was that I made the locked rooms and keys way too easy to access. I wanted these locked rooms to be a challenge to get into, but the player was able to get into them all right away. The final thing that went wrong was the weapon system. I was trying to implement weapon lockers that the player could access and get their characters to have a better attack. However, this just made the characters too strong for the mobs to handle and it made the level seem too easy at times. 

The image is of the weapon locker room:

There are some ways that I would like to improve this map. One of those ways would be to hide the keys to the locked rooms a lot better. This is based on what I had mentioned before, the player had an easy time entering these rooms which was not the goal that I had in mind. Another way that I would improve my level would be to add a bit more guards. Again, this is because of what I said above, some parts of the level seemed too easy and I think a solution for this would be to add a couple more guards. The last thing that I would change and improve would be the shape of some rooms in the map. A couple of the rooms in the level seemed a little narrow and I just feel like making some of the rooms a little wider to add more of a cleaner feel to the whole map. In the end, I had a really good time making all three versions of the DnD maps and I look forward to doing similar projects in the future.