Final Project B level design implementation

The previous post outlined the implementation for a pre-feedback version of the level from my Project A level design. This post provides an update to the level based on feedback from a playtesting session at the practical class held on 15.04.2025.

Date: 20.04. 2025

Activity: 

• Attended the project B playtesting practical, gave and received feedback with multiple students in a pair.
• Implemented slight changes to the pre-feedback version of the level design based on playtesting feedback.

Notes: 

Thankfully, all the people who played my level enjoyed it. They said it was challenging but fun which was my main goal. No new game-breaking bugs were discovered, apart from the ones I myself discussed in the previous post. Before getting into changes I implemented, here is the playtesting feedback notes:

• Double jump bug was sometimes discovered by players
• Missing shaders for acid lake, making it pink
• Directions where to go are not present so sometimes players wouldn't know how to progress
• Several comments (not necessarily complaints) about the difficulty of the level, suggesting to lower it in *some* way
• The drop down to the underground section is unfair to players who have no indication of the danger below; the jump is precise
• Players had clipping problems with invisible walls meant for enemy pathfinding and crate softlock prevention
• Players who had issues beating the level appreciated the bug where the level doesn't reset fully after second death

First, the easy changes were adding arrow signposts to areas where players were uncertain where they had to go (at acid lake and drop down to undergroud section), adding danger signs in a visible place above where the spike and enemy are at drop down to underground section, fixing the invisible wall clipping, and adding different (URP) shader to acid lake. The hard changes all went hand in hand and sort of canceled each other out for the final experience. Namely, it would be quite difficult to change the difficulty of the level without explicitly going against the Project A level design. However, if, for example, the double/triple jumping bug was left in the game, along with the no reset after second death, this would provide a meta way of keeping the experience enjoayble for people who are struggling, but also allow players who are up to the challenge to make the choice for themselves wheteher or not to use these "bugs turned features" :) Originally, my intent was to fix them, but after having an extremely hard time with the double jumping bug (unable to fix even with help of professor and mind numbing amount of trial and error on my own after) I thought it might be a good idea to leave both the bugs in the game because I saw how helpful it was while people were testing the game, especially since the professor also said it was ok if I didn't manage to fix it. 

Invested hours: 

• Estimated/actual time for bug fixes and updates: ~2h/~3.5h (The difference here is mostly in fiddling with a lot of variations for the double jump bug)

Outcome: 

Final version of the implemented level, available as an HTML embedded WebGL version (attached also build .zip)