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Hi Guys, Graham here.
I've been part of the Space Budgie team now for just under one month and what a crazy month its been! Getting up to speed with a product mid development can be an exhausting task. I must have played through Glitchspace almost a dozen times in my first week alone.
My specialty is in level design, however with almost all of the design for 2.0 nailed down and solidified, small tweaks here and there were all that was needed. Attention has instead been directed towards the aesthetics of the levels; audio, detail, lighting - all the fun parts of level design that you have to resist doing until sufficient testing and iteration has been done.
Whilst detailing the levels, it was suggested that each level could have a “theme” to help create a little variation in the environment (because let's face it; Regardless of how engaging the puzzles are, staring at the same arrangement of blue colored blocks for hours might get a little fatiguing). With this in mind, we've started experimenting with various themes for each of the levels. Numerous play testers had made comments in the past on the Aztec vibe they received from the Collisions level, and through some experimentation, a Gothic theme emerged for Forces. This opens up the opportunity to create narrative set pieces to build around the puzzles that are memorable to the player. Whilst I've been darting back and forth between various levels, (and even prototyping some brand new stuff!) most of my focus has been on the Forces level and one such set piece that has emerged is what I've grown to call “The Courtyard”.
Its built up around the first three puzzles the player encounters in Forces and resembles a manor garden (water feature and all! – sorry I get a little excited over the water feature). Whilst building it up, I found myself subconsciously making up a narrative ; “what would people have done in this section?”, “where would this staircase have led?”, “why is there a nice water feature inside?!” We want to imply a narrative in these environments, to immerse the player into the world and let their imagination run.
That's all for this week, best be getting back to work!