Mega Man Level 2 - Kyle Ramser

10/25/2022

Mega Man Level 2 - Kyle Ramser

I was actually extremely proud of how this level came out, as I was able to fix a lot of the issues that my first level had and I thought I did a really good job of theming it as well. So, for the weapons that I chose to use, I picked the oil and arrow guns, and rather than using them as actual weapons in the level I mainly implemented them as utilities for the players to use to get through the level. Rather than just using weapon doors that required the weapons to get through, I also made the path impossible to get through without using the newly acquired weapon, such as the arrow being used to clear a large gap and the oil being used to make it up a very high jump. I thought this was a very good use of the new weapons and was fun for players to experiment with and learn.

The length of this level was almost on the dot 10 minutes to complete, and was a good level of difficulty, with it not being too easy to complete, but did not make you die constantly. I also kept the idea of having a checkpoint at every key so that if you were to die, you would not be sent back incredibly far, and would instead be spawned with all the progress you had already made. The critical path of the level is fairly clear, as there is only one place you can go before getting the new weapons, and there are not too many ways to get lost, as it is a very linear progression level, instead of my previous one where it had to be explored to move on.

As for theming, I thought I did a very good job of making the level forest themed, having you start in a small “forest temple” and having to climb trees and jump over other decrepit buildings to move on through the level. The backgrounds were different for each height that you would go to, having the forest on the bottom, dark leaves above that to suggest that you are climbing through the treetops, plain sky one level above for being out of the treetops, and on one giant tree you climb there is a cloud background showing that you are very high up in the air.

My enemy choices were mainly Mega Man 1 enemies, as they all look like industrial workers, and the idea was that they were destroying the forest and that you were there to take them out. Obviously though, the level did have some issues that need to be ironed out. One of which was that when jumping over the decaying building on your way back from the last key, if you jump too high up it is possible to hit your head on some spikes that were used to prevent players from ending up in this area early. It wouldn't be too hard to fix but is a bit annoying nonetheless.

The other extremely important issue is that it is very difficult to get up into the temple to end the game. I designed it so that you had to use the oil to get up, but it is such a small space that it is very difficult to do this, and since this is a condition for you to finish the game, it is a horribly game breaking bug that I need to iron out. All I really need to do to fix this is to add a single block below the jump so that the jump is makeable, so it will not be difficult, but this was by far the worst issue that my game had.