Double Door

Overview

Taking inspiration from my Reboot Level Design Project, Double Door is an individual level design project that focuses on the principle of setting goals and creating circulars in the level, enabling a deep level experience for the player.

The goal in the level is obvious while the fastest path that leads to the goal is blocked by the obstacle. The player needs to find other paths and travel through the challenges to unlock the doors to create shortcuts and reach the goal.

Inspired by the Super Mario Series, collectables are implemented into the game for the players to challenge themselves.

Project Type	Individual Level Design Project
Platform	PC
Engine	Unreal 5.1.1
Toolkit Used	Level Up Toolkit 1.4.1

Video Demo

Related Link

Download to play this level: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/no67bl3w6118azfdr840i/Proj2_DoubleDoor_Yuxin-1.zip?rlkey=ac4wuz05w0k2mrflhdetd927a&dl=0

Features

• Collectables

Collectables are a main feature of this level. It not only serves as visual guidance, but also provides challenges to the players, including encountering enemies, careful observing, and puzzle solving.

When collectables were first introduced in paper design, it mostly served as normal collectables and visual guidance, which means it won’t be a challenge for the players to collect all of them.

Later, in the initial Greyboxing, I found some interesting spaces that could become a challenge for the player to obtain these collectables. For example, the player cannot simply jump onto the top of the ending zone to collect the donut. Instead, they need to go through a secret path, reach a higher place in the structure, and then jump back onto the top of the ending zone.

This path was initially created for players who haven’t obtained a staff and failed to jump over the ditch. Since this could be a frustrating experience, I add the design of these collectables that could give the player a surprise and positive feedback even if they have failed jumping over the ditch.
For the players who successfully obtain the staff and jump over the ditch. This turns out to be a challenge for them if they would like to collect all of the collectables. Though it is easy to observe, players need to think and figure out the way.

With more playtests, I have found that having lots of collectables doesn’t mean that they are good visual guidance which can be understood easily.
After I have created the blueprint of the collectables in the second area, I have put one collectables on each of the pillars (Pic. Puzzle V1.0 above). While this area includes puzzle solving in which the player needs to push the right buttons on the pillar indicated by the color green on the pillar, or the lights shed on the ceiling, the player finds it hard to understand the puzzle because the collectables are misleading, and the players believe that they need to push every button on the pillars since there is one collectable on each of the pillars.

So I changed the distribution of the collectables in this puzzle area. Only the pillars with the right buttons have collectables above, indicating the answers to this puzzle.

Gallery