Lead Developer Programancer breaks down how he went about designing the layouts of some of Prison City’s levels.
Rooftops
When it comes to seeing the results, Programancer was content that Rooftops turned out as he intended.
Programancer: Rooftops by design is meant to be very entry level, and I put a lot of “first level” inspiration into it– the boss being a reflection of the first boss in Journey to Silius, the stage being inspired by a lot of Power Blade’s levels where you can see a platform or area in a screen you can’t reach without navigating above or below (the starting room requiring you to go up and around, and the contact room requiring you to go below and climb up).
Programancer: The first room is inspired by the bat skip in Castlevania, with the intention that speedrunners can coyote slide into a bullet to damage boost onto the platform and cut some time.
Freeway
Programancer: Freeway was a bit difficult because I had to put in a lengthy stretch into a non-linear game- so I thought about ways to do that. Initially, it was just going to be a long freeway you walk along (boring), and then I thought about Mega Man 5’s Wave Man water bike segment and how cool it would be to have something like to start the level out with.
Programancer: And once that was set up, I thought it would be cool to do something different for the part after that, as well, so I took inspiration from Mega Man X’s intro stage with the freeway chunks dropping down after beating an enemy.
Cold Storage
When it came to Cold Storage, like Rooftops, this level also turned out to be what Programancer intended.
Programancer: Cold Storage’s premise was just “ a level themed around a giant central area that you have to vertically climb,” and then the grinders were a good fit for the auxiliary rooms leading up.
Programancer: The grinders on this level were an idea from Retroware’s president, and I implemented them into the route pretty early in the design.
Be on the lookout for more updates very soon! We have more in store to share as we get closer to Prison City’s launch!
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