Journal Entry 3

Date: 24.4.2020

This week I'm going to be finishing the level. I don't think I can finish the entire level, because I need to look back at previous rooms and decorate them. In my opinion it's better to have more enjoyable and nicer part of the level rather than whole level with no detail.

I finished two more rooms.  And instead of portal to another I will just place a statue signifying the level is over. I'm pretty sure my level meets the requirement of taking experienced player 2-3 minutes. Now I want to focus on making sure the level is playable and decorating it a little.

Splitting objects into groups by room really paid of. Objects are easy to find.

Level design says acid should hurt player. However acid in the kit is made to kill player instantly. I will stick to that as it makes more sense.

What I noticed about the design is the author didn't pay attention to if the player can return back to previous room. Maybe they could miss a key or a pressure pad. That can easily annoy the player. The only way to get back is to kill the character. If all keys are meant to be collected then this is a big flaw. If keys were "bonus" the only problem would be you cant go back to switch in one of the rooms. I didn't give keys any purpose as they are supossed to unlock door in last room. So I will at least fix the switch part. I added a tile the player can jump back on.

Date: 25.4.2020

I played the level few times to make sure its playable and tweaked position of some objects. The level now feels playble but quite empty. I will few decorations from the assets. When I was designing walls I just used one tile, now it's a good one to change them a bit and alter tiles.
I've added few decorations such as plants and roots to make the level seem like a cave. And this wraps up this level design.

One last room is missing and keys aren't collectible, other than that I have recreated everything from original author's level design and I'm happy with the result. 

Here are some key points I learnt during implementation:
- keeping scale in mind is important when designing a level
- all player paths need to be considered, including way to go back to important objectives (switches, collectibles...)

Outcome:
final build (Google Drive)

Invested hours:
designing level in Unity: 3.5 hours