3D Level 1 V1 Feedback

 In today's class we playtested everyone's 3D levels today. This was a cool step because we had never worked on a 3D level before and being able to playtest everyone's levels was very fun and interesting. Our levels only had a couple of requirements. Those being: it has to work, there have to be enemies, it has to be Sci Fi Jungle theme, and it has to be around 10 minutes of gameplay. Other than that we were free to explore and create a world of our own.

The image below is of the top view of my whole level:

Moving back to the playtest itself, there were many things that went right for me and my level. I was having a couple problems with my NavMesh when making my level that caused the enemies to not move, however, I was able to figure it out and to see the enemies move while people were playing my level gave me some relief and made me happy. Another thing that went right was my level provided a little difficulty. I know that this level is supposed to be an easy level but I was worried that my level would be too easy, so I was happy to see that there were some parts with a learning curve to them that provided the right amount of challenge for the player. The last thing that I will talk about is when my doors worked. I was also having a hard time with some of the doors opening and I wasn’t sure if they were actually going to open in the real playtest, but they did and I am so relieved that it works just as I intended.

The image below is of one of the enemies in my level:

Now moving onto the things that went wrong with my playtest. The main thing that went wrong was how this level could be easily speedrun. Meaning that players can easily dodge enemies without having to take damage or interact with them. This is just not what I wanted with the level but it does make an interesting challenge to the level to not get hit by the enemies. Another thing that went wrong was that some of my acid didn’t work in the main acid pool. This was just an issue I had that was going off and on with my personal playtesting and I was worried that it was going to go wrong with the official playtest and it did. So it was a little disappointing but there is not much I can do about it until the second version of this level.

Image below is of the giant acid pool in my level:

There are a couple things that I will change for the next version of my level. The first one being to fix my NavMesh. I am still having somewhat of an issue with my NAvMesh so I was going to look back on the tutorials and fix it. Another thing I was going to fix is the giant acid pool. Like I said before, I was having a problem with it not killing the players at some points and was going to expand the kill area a little and see if that solves the problem. The last thing I will change is making some of the walls/pathways a little skinnier so that it is harder to run past the enemies. In a way I am causing some forced conflict to my level in order to ensure that it is played properly.

This is an image of one of my skill tests in my level:

In the end, I feel like I made the path that the players are supposed to go on pretty obvious. There is really only one path with little exploration because this is supposed to be an easy level and I didn’t want people to get lost. I also feel like the overall flow was nice and relaxed with a nice balance between fighting and parkour. I also feel like my circulation elements were good and helped provide this nice overall flow throughout the level. With all that being said, I hope to make my adjustments and improvements for the second version of my level and make people enjoy it even more.