Coalesce Level Design

This devlog will focus on level design. I decided to create designs for 6 levels this week, and will implement the levels and their features over the course of this week and the next.

Level Designs

The first level features just three bumpers that need to be destroyed before the player can progress. This level exists so the player can get to grips with the controls and the basic mechanics.

The second level is same same as the first with one crucial difference; the bumper at the top is obscured from the paddles by an indestructible block. The intention is to encourage players to start exploring out-of-the-box strategies such as bouncing off of walls, or deliberately falling into the trough to re-spawn and come at the upper bumper from above.

Encouraging these ideas now will (hopefully) help the player identify these patterns in later levels.

Level three is the first to introduce a new mechanic. The bumpers with the dark red center are indestructible (the ball will simply pass over them) until the ball touches the red switch. This level is straightforward so that the player can learn this mechanic.

This fourth level requires the player to use the trough to complete it. The player will give themselves maximum velocity to hit the switch to make the upper bumper destructible, but they will find that they cannot use the paddles to get back up due to the environmental factors in the way. Not only that, but the lower bumper is indestructible now.

The fifth level is fairly open ended, but generally the player is expected to make two passes through the red switch, the first time getting the lower bumper, and the second time getting the upper bumper.  This level is essentially the same as the previous in order to help reinforce using the trough as a mechanic.

This final level uses the expectation that the trough is need to solve the puzzles in some way to subvert the player's expectations. If the player only ever comes at the bumpers from above, the center bumper will never be destructible. Instead, the player must come at the bumper from below, activating the switch only once and breaking out of the cycle.

Basic Level Incorporation

Many of the features of the environment are common across all the levels. As such, I have created a basic scene that contains all of the common elements to use as a template for the levels in the future. Here is a screenshot of that scene.

The different shapes of this new environment necessitate changes to the game's systems. For example, it was necessary to stretch the paddles to be longer to allow for a wider variety of launch force, and the slingshots (triangles) had to be modified so they didn't launch the ball at the perfect trajectory to fall between the paddles.

Changes such as these will likely be ongoing throughout the development of Coalesce.