WOODMAN ICEMAN TAG TEAM STAGE

POST MORTEM

What Went Right:

When play testing the level, I decided to get people who weren't focused in game designed and weren't experienced in Mega Man to play. I just let them play the game and recorded their play through to watch later. This was a useful technique because I was able to step back and not lean over their shoulder while player. My personal issue with play testers is that I'm usually compelled to give them hints if they seem to be struggling, so not providing hints and seeing their natural reactions helped highlight what areas needed improvement and provided more valuable feedback. Another thing that went right was that the engine was really easy to learn and get used to. I had never used it before, and I didn't get a chance to make a paper map for the 3rd stage. However, it was relatively easy to just design in the engine and was even easier than making a paper map first and then making it in the engine. Lastly, I had been playing Mega Man games recently, so I felt like I had a good idea of the different things that make a Mega Man level a Mega Man level. Making risk and reward one up scenarios came naturally and I knew what most of the enemies did and where to place them.

What Went Wrong: 

One thing that went wrong was that I had little experience in the engine before making the paper map. I had planned around the ideas of having multiple bosses in a stage and being able to rotate the fire pillars and found out afterwards that these were not things that can be done in the engine. Another issue was that having items in the level that give you a specific buster locks that weapon from the start. The third level used the idea of taking away a buster and then giving it back, but that made it so that the player didn't start with that weapon. I provided both weapons immediately under the start for the player because of this. Lastly, I had an issue with choosing backgrounds. The idea of the level was to shift between frozen and forest type areas. However, the Woodman background look very out of place when placed next to any other background. The way I dealt with this was making cave like areas where the background is blocked for a bit by platforms, allowing a seemingly seamless background transition.

Lessons Learned:

Pre-production is very important, but it's also important to know the limitations of your engine and how building in it works before hand. For me, making the level in the engine was easier than paper mapping, because it had a easy to use snap to grid system. I paper mapped in Photoshop, and this was a lot less organized and harder to work with, and it also didn't correct me if I ended up using something from the engine wrong on the map. I learned how to better run play tests. Usually I just watch them play and ask for feedback, but this time I decided to step back and just record them. This meant that my input didn't taint the data and I got more valuable feedback from it. Lastly I learned the importance of understanding your game. If you design a level for a game you've never played, it's difficult to understand the expectations of a level and make it feel like it fits in with the rest of the game. I played a decent amount of Mega Man as a kid, and was playing some of the old one recently to get back into it. This really helped when trying to make it really feel like a Mega Man game, and helped me understand some of the different techniques used when designing Mega Man levels.

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