I'd start with simple levels to ease the player in to the game, and start ramping up the difficulty as you go. You may even want to make level 1 just a few rooms with a few ladders so that the gamer can actually get used to the controlls and navigating before you throw a maze at them.
-----Original Message----- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 10:52 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: [Audyssey] Mysteries of the Ancients Levels Hi everyone, Here is a little something I've been thinking about for a while now, but have been to occupied building the Genesis Engine to really think about Mysteries of the Ancients specifically. So now that the engine is pretty much squared away at this point I can now focus my full attention on designing Mysteries of the Ancients. Which is precisely what I am going to be doing over the next few weeks. In brief my ideas and thoughts have been surrounding the level maps. I don't know about you personally, but I can't help but think that the current levels, levels 1 and 2, are just a tad too simplistic for my liking. Basically, what we have currently is a simple split level map with an upper and lower level, and about 20 rooms in a 20 by 300 grid. Otherwise it is just your basic side-scroller starting from the left side of the screen and ending on the right side of the screen. However, yesterday when I picked up my game pad to test and play Mysteries of the Ancients it brought to mind all of the classic side-scrollers I use to play when I was sighted. One of the big ones is puzzle elements. Montezuma's Revenge is a great case in point. One of the things that made Montezuma's Revenge such a great game is that there were 11 2d mazes the player had to solve in order to beat the game. Each maze had 25 rooms spread out over five floors. There were various other puzzle elements throughout like vanishing platforms, color coded keys required to unlock doors, burning torches to light dark rooms, force fields, and so on. Plus there were traps like fire pits, chasms, burning ropes, etc to jump over/avoid. In short, in terms of the level maps alone games like Montezuma's Revenge is far more complex and I can't help but feel as though MOTA doesn't quite live up to its full potential as a treasure hunting game. Another game that strikes me as another good example is Tomb Raider Prophecy for the Nintendo Gameboy. While the levels themselves were not as complex as Montezuma's Revenge in design they were more difficult in terms of traps and puzzle elements. For example, there were trick doors that when you pulled a lever they would open and after a couple of seconds they would close again. That made it a real challenge to run through the door before it smashes you flat or locks you out of that chamber. Basically, what I'm saying is that I know I can do a lot more to make Mysteries of the Ancients a much better game. Add more puzzle elements, add a better maze design to the levels, and add more traps, etc to the game. All of these would be over all improvements to the game itself in my book. However, my worry is that if I take a little time perhaps an extra month to really redo the game and add these new revisions I'm going to take a lot of unnecessary heat from the community. I've already taken enough heat for various things like switching programming languages in the middle of development, attempting to add cross-platform support, and other things like that. I really don't want to make people any more upset or frustrated with me than I absolutely have too. So it is up to you if you really think these revisions or worth it, or you want me to just complete the game without them. Finally, if we do decide to go with the more complex level maps we have a couple of ways of going about it. We could base them off of a game like Montezuma's Revenge, which is what this game started out as to begin with, or we could just create some all new original maps. Let me know what you think. Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
