Purgatory Purgers: Level Design

What Should a Level Look Like?

In my last post, I solved a major collaboration issue by figuring out how to export/import individual rooms in GameMaker Studio 2.

Since then, Eric and I have been creating levels to round out the game, and with a little over an hour’s worth of content, I’ve been looking at some of the larger levels to see which parts I can cull so that the game doesn’t get dull/outstay it’s welcome.

Level design is difficult to do well. Purgatory Purgers’ level elements can be broken down into a few different components:

Features

At its heart, Purgatory Purgers is a puzzle-exploration game. Each level is a series of interconnected rooms of varying shapes and sizes and could include:

  • Gambits: Rooms with one or more dangerous enemies
  • Treasure Rooms: Filled with lost souls (the primary objective of the game/scoring system) and free lives
  • Puzzles: Moveable blocks, bridges, etc.
  • Secrets: Hidden rooms and passages marked by a small crack in the floor or an odd-looking bush.

These aren’t mutually exclusive and could be combined to form interesting and progressively more challenging areas.

Flow

A good level shouldn’t railroad the player down a specific route; instead, there should be 2-3 branching paths and reward players for exploration with additional lives and/or hidden shortcuts through the level.

Embellishments

To bring the Purgatory Purgers levels to life, I created lots of additional tiles to add flavor and mystery to each set of levels. Locked doors, sewer grates, pools of water, grass, grates, blood spatters, arcane symbols, and even emptiness in the later levels.

Putting It All Together

A good level combines all of the above to form a cohesive package; the level is:

  1. Good looking (i.e., makes good use of the available tileset and avoids excessive repetition)
  2. Intuitive to navigate (it doesn’t require a lot of backtracking)
  3. Sufficiently diverse in enemies, puzzles, and mechanics
  4. Above all, fun to play (read: sufficiently challenging, but not too difficult)

Concept Art

I picked up a Wacom Intuos (digital stylus and tablet) today, I don’t have a great deal of desk space to work with, and am used to working on a small surface anyhow.

After unpacking it, plugging it in, and running the setup file on the installation media, I got it to work, but I noticed that everything I drew was squashed!

After a little troubleshooting, I figure out that I needed to configure the screen area needed to be adjusted as I have all 3 of my monitors linked through a TripleHead2Go box which allows me to treat them as a single display (handy when you want to run applications in 5760×1080 resolution :).

Once I adjusted the screen area in the Wacom utility, it worked great. I’m very much out of the habit of drawing, so I decided to start with something simple. I started doodling with big, roundish shapes, and filled in the sketch as a bulbous, bloated clown. I gave him scrawny arms and legs, and large, round head topped off with tufts of red curly hair. Here’s how he turned out:

V-Toad evil clown concept
Concept art of an evil clown character, first version to test my new stylus and tablet.

I will likely make some changes, perhaps give him a Jacobean Ruff and perhaps a hat. We’ll just have to see :).

Where to Begin?

Before one can build something, there are a few basic questions to answer:

  1. What do you want to be build exactly? (2D? 3D? Puzzle? Action? be specific)
  2. What tools/resources will you need?
  3. What skills will be needed to create resources/use tools to accomplish your purpose?

Since I want to jump in and create something, my aim is to gain experience. I know that I’m not going to create a perfect game on my first attempt, so I want to start with something simple and portable. That last time I attempted this about 12 years ago was with a tool called “3D Game Studio“. While I was able to create a few “working” 3D environments, and learned a lot about textures, sprites, blocks etc., I was never able to get a handle on scripting.

Also, given that I had no experience working with 3D modeling tools (would have been 3D Studio Max at the time), I had no way of creating models for actors, nor did I know anyone who was capable doing so.  While I might be able to teach myself, this is a highly-specialized art that takes a lot of time and skill to master.

2D sprites on the other hand are something far more familiar to me as I can draw, and I am very comfortable with Photoshop (I ought to be, having used it for the last 18 years or so).

So going back to the questions above, here’s what I’ve got:

What do you want to be build exactly? (2D? 3D? Puzzle? Action? be specific)

A simple, 2D game with basic mechanics (right now I’m leaning toward a “Diabolika” clone)

What tools/resources will you need?

I’ve been researching non-programmer friendly game engines and came across GameSalad. It’s PC version is a bit buggy, so I’m hoping it’s just user error and not a reflection of the quality of the application.

What appeals to me about it is that I can use for free as long as I like, and will only incur a cost ($300 USD/year) if I elect to publish with it.

Edit: GameSalad went to a subscription model around June of 2015, and no longer offers a ‘free’ version.

This seems like a reasonable investment given that I’d have the ability to publish to Android, Apple and PC (HTML5) markets without having to do any porting.As to other tools, I already have Photoshop, and will be picking up a Wacom tablet to draw sprites with (I own one already, but that’s back in the US, and I’m currently working in Saudi Arabia).

As to sound effects and Music, I have a decent microphone, and have been creating electronic music on Skale (a windows-based version of Faster Tracker II) for almost two decades, and have literally hundreds of pieces (some finished, many not) of original music I’ve composed myself, and can use as source material.

What skills will be needed to create resources/use tools to accomplish your purpose?

Of all the tools listed above, the only one that’s new to me is GameSalad. Thankfully, there are a lot of Tutorials on YouTube that explain the basics, as well as other resources provided by GameSalad and others to help me get started. I’m currently working my way through a series of tutorials  created by “Matt P”.  From what I can tell, this appears to be part of a formal game creation class as he’s also included links to the source material in his comments (sprites, sounds, music etc.).I’ve watched and followed along with 3/9 of the videos so far, but I’ll write more on that in my next post…