Ideation: Level Design

1. Level design

After finishing the core mechanics, I started to add a skybox and a factory asset into Unity to start designing the level. My idea is to create 3 levels: one level for a tutorial, one level for simple combat, and one puzzle level.

For the tutorial level, I created a projection material because I want it to feel like the robot projects the tutorial over for the player. I follow a video on how to make a hologram shader graph:

This is my result:

Then I proceed to create a level for the tutorial and a simple box-breaking scene for the player to get used to the exploding mechanics

Here is when the problem arises: when I go down the second level and want to call the robots for the explosion, it takes too much time to reach downstairs. That’s when I realize the return function is really important, and there should be a specific button for it, not just in the shooting gestures. Therefore, I added the R keys to make the robot return and also lock in its position.

For the combat, I just created a simple enemy that can follow and attack the player. I found some animations from Mixamo and gave the enemy some basic animation

2. Puzzle Design

Puzzle design is more challenging than I think. It’s hard to know where to start, so I played some games to find inspiration for my puzzle.

I realize the puzzle should be relatively simple, but it should tie into game mechanics. It comes down to the question, what the player could do in the game and then build the puzzle around it. In God of War, Kratos can throw his axe, so the puzzle is to find the perfect angle to throw it. In Stray, B-12 can move some specific objects, so the puzzle is about placing objects and parkouring. Most of these puzzles are just placing and positioning objects with variations.

So I added an object that my robot can interact with through the pointing gesture. I also include the mouse wheel to allow the player to control how close or how far the robot can go. Finally, I created a simple door mechanics so the player has to stay on one side while controlling the robot, pick an object, and put it on the button to keep the door open on the other side.