Hello again! Let’s talk about level design, and what goes into making the first real puzzle of the game both satisfying to solve while not creating a huge difficulty spike.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO PLAY MY GAME, PLAY IT FIRST AND COME BACK TO THIS LATER.
Cool? Cool. With that out of the way, let’s look at a screenshot of the critical moment of the puzzle.
Up to this point, the levels haven’t really been puzzles. The player has mostly just pointed the beam at the only mirror they can reach, walked/jumped/wall jumped their way to it, then turned it to the next one. Here, the player runs into an issue. They can’t reach that top mirror or the diode above it, which will open the door (hidden by lighting) and allow them to progress. They look around and only see one more mirror, far below. That mirror can’t even direct the beam to the mirror or the diode. How do they progress? Hint: “walked/jumped/wall jumped”
Got it yet? The player needs to point the beam at the bottom mirror, turn it so they can wall jump their way up to the top-right mirror, adjust that mirror so that the beam coming from the left will hit the diode, then point the light back in the configuration shown, but this time, the beam will hit the diode. Pictures will probably help here:
(as always, click to make larger)
So, how can I be so sure that this isn’t a huge difficulty spike? For one, playtesting. I grabbed my sister and had her play through the chunk of levels I had created. Some did turn out to be too hard, but she was able to solve this one after a bit of thinking. But how can I ensure that from a design standpoint, instead of making my sister play everything multiple times? The answer is more an art than a science (I’d call it one of the key artistic decisions of game making), but I take the approach of reducing as many variables as possible for the first puzzle. Once you get to the critical point, there are exactly two mirrors to work with. The player is unlikely to get overwhelmed by options, or follow an incorrect line of reasoning for too long, simply because there’s not too far to follow it before the player runs out of space. I also suggest at the solution a tiny bit graphically – the overhang of the island above is meant to call a bit of attention to itself, and lead to the beam being pointed there.
Despite all these measure to ease on the difficulty, however, the puzzle still feels like a real puzzle. if the entire level were just the right side, it’s likely that the player would feel like the level was too simple. Having a small bit of filler on the left side allows the solution to feel much more like a real puzzle solution without adding any complexity. Additionally, I had once experimented with adding a differently-colored block near where the beam should be pointed to allow wall jumping up, but that felt unsatisfying. Part of what I’m trying to teach in this level is that beams don’t necessarily need to be pointed where it looks like they should be pointed (mirrors, etc.), and giving too obvious a hint would break that lesson and make the level feel like it was already solved when you walked in.
Thanks for reading, again. Next week, the trend continues as I talk about the addition of water, and what that means for design.