Map Building and Platform Types

Map Building

Since my last Devlog I've been working on building out a more completed map for our player and enemies to move around in. I started scaling up the size of the map, because as it was before the speed of the player made each map section feel too small. We didn't want to slow the player down so I opted to increase the amount of space the player had to move around in by pulling the camera back.  I also began to draw out a handful of example map shapes that would take into account the kinds of Metroidvania mechanics that we wanted to introduce into our game, such as backtracking and platforming (and maybe some hidden areas!)

Platforms

We wanted to create some new types of platforms that could be used to make the platforming more interesting. Since player movement is such a big focus in our game, we need to have more than one way for them to traverse the levels and make exploring more fun. The three kinds of platforms I focused on were One-way Platforms, Fall Through Platforms, and Moving Platforms.

Movement Tech

Something fun that I discovered when playing around with our characters movement (specifically the dodge roll and the air stall), was that these two movement actions chained together could actually give the player a longer and higher jump than usual. A gap that normally couldn't be cleared with a full speed jump, or even a jump that's been accelerated with the dodge roll, could be achieved if you time an air dodge properly at the end. This game me the idea to add the "secret room" in the top left corner of the map, which will be made to only be accessible if the player can pull off this slightly more advances movement tech. I really felt like this was sticking true to the heart of the Metroidvania genre so I was very excited that our character had the ability to do these advanced and fun maneuvers!

Our project is starting to really come together. I'm very proud of the work we've all done so far and I'm excited to show off more as we get further along the development process!