MegaMan Map V1 Playtest

 In class today, my classmates and I were instructed to playtest each other's Mega Man levels that we had to create from scratch. These levels were designed to be beginner levels/ starter levels. I had about 6 people playtest my level today and I got some great feedback from all of them.

With that being said there are a couple of things that went right when the playtesting occurred. The first thing that went right was the challenge of the level. I was a little worried that my level would have been too easy even for a starter level, so I was happy to see that some skill was needed in order to complete the level. Another thing that went right was the 3 different paths that the players could take. I made all paths possible of course but I kept the play-testers on their toes because they were never sure what path would be the easiest to go on to win. Each path leads to the end of the level, but it was still interesting to watch their progression and reactions.

This image is of the spawn area in my level:

However, some things went wrong with my level. Just like I said above with it being a good thing, my level was also hard in some areas. I think a couple less mobs could have done nicely, but that’s why I had to test it out in the first place. Other than that there was only one other problem and that was with tower units. They just did not do the job I wanted them to do so I was a little disappointed.

With all that being said, there are a couple changes that I would make to the level. The first one would be moving some mobs into better positions. Some of the mobs were just in difficult places and trapped the players at times. Another change that I would make is to make my “top” path a little easier. Again, the mobs posed as to much of a problem and people just ended up going the other paths anyway. In the end, I think I just need to move the mobs around a little bit and that should make the level a lot better. 

This is an image of one of the mobs in my level:

Going deeper into my level, I believe that there was a good amount of skill required to beat my level that provided a challenge as well as a guide on how to play the game as it was supposed to be a starter level. This was done with the mobs and quick sand that was added to the level, slowing down the players and making them use different techniques to eliminate the enemies. I had also mentioned this above, but my level had three different paths and there is no “obvious'' path to go through, but there is a harder path that players can choose to avoid and when they choose to avoid that path they get forced to go to the easiest path. I also tried adding circulation elements to help encourage the players to go other ways, so I added breakable blocks where players can either choose to break the blocks and go down one path or climb the blocks and go to another. 

This is an image of a fork between two paths and the breakable blocks the separate them:

In the end, the overall flow of my game is a fast-passed situation that I decided to slow down with multiple obstacles like quicksand and breakable blocks. This is to make the players slow down and think of their next move before they make it to ensure that their playtesting experience is not just about rushing into things blindly.