Hey there! Just wanted make a post about something that fascinates me: Encounters in Level Design.

To me a good encounter needs to feel organic, needs to have the right balance of challenge and fun while still being entertaining. With the encounter with Boss Taco in Mantis Boy this was something I achieved by really putting myself in Mantis' shoes. The boss encounter being that he rides on a forklift needed to push the stress of a situation (pedestrian vs vehicle). In a wide open space it would be easy to run off to the side and avoid it so I opted for a more enclosed map for this section as well there needed to be an obvious speed difference between the two so you couldn't easily run off to the side and spam shoot the boss dead. 

There's lots of factors that go into engaging encounters like music or change in music to set the tone, sound effects to feel immersed and lay out of the level to set the constraints of the encounter. Mechanics also play a critical part, outlining what exactly you can do and how you can do it, and good mechanics will allow for patients in play style from player to player.

I'm currently starting out a open world fps/crafting game where I will be making it "encounter heavy" if you will to really showcase my passion for design.