Level Select Redesign
Here's a trailer of the new level select zone! I'm very happy with the zone and the new UI, and I hope you like it when you play it. The rest of this post will outline the reasons I thought it was important to rework the Level Select, and the problems that this new design solves.
The Problems
The old level select screen had a variety of problems that became more and more apparent as I watched people play the game. Some of those issues were:
- Moving between levels was slow.
- The "Next Level" direction changed occasionally, meaning that people would sometimes move the wrong way or not be able to move intuitively between levels.
- How many stars you'll need for the next gate wasn't obvious.
- Gates blocked your progress until you walked up to them, then they opened and allowed access to later levels.
- It was unclear how many more levels you had access to. At any given point you could only see between 2-5 level entry points.
- People never found the "Quick Select" menu that resolved some of these issues.
- If you didn't find Quick Select, there was no way to tell which levels were missing stars without going to each level individually, which could take over a minute given the movement speed.
- The level select didn't have any "flavor" it was just an abstract bunch of squares and weird geometry.
- There weren't any landmarks in the level select which you could use to remember where in the sequence levels or sets of levels were.
- The level names in the Quick Select menu were small.
- The camera in the old Level Select had to have a super high draw distance, which meant that it actually had pretty bad FPS.
- The UI didn't support showing both Star Times and Rainbow Gem times.
- ...and many more problems!
The Solution(s)
The most important change was taking the idea of the "Quick Select Menu" and making that the default way that players interact with the level. The new level list shows you all the information you need, including your obtained stars, star time requirements, personal best times, and level gate star requirements. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and hope you like it as much as I do.
The next most important thing was to make the physical level into something memorable. I've had the idea for a giant pogo stick shaped spaceship for a while now, and it ended up working pretty nicely as the setting for the level select menu. Over the last few weeks I've been building out the ship, adding decorative elements, and adding various polish, like the intro and gate open cutscenes.
I tried to break the ship into distinct zones, so that it's easier to remember where certain levels are, so now instead of trying to remember "The football level is #27", you can remember "The football level is at the beginning of the observation deck / engine area". I also did tried to make each zone interesting enough that getting to the next area would be a bit of an incentive to keep playing & to keep your interest as you progress in the game.
Changelog
- Too many things to list related to the level select redesign.
- Updated text in demo end screen.
- Added options menu setting to always enable rainbow gem displays (you're welcome speedrunners!)
- Change the walls on Salmon to have grids so it's easier to tell how far away they are.
- Revamp the in-level UI elements so that they're less cramped & align better with the level select UI.
- In level UI leaderboard is much taller now.
- Rename "Get to the Goal" (level 1) to "The Basics".