Level/Asset Design

After Marty's presentation on concept and design, I've gone back and started approaching my designing a little differently.

I decided to do a little more research and try to locate some more inspiration for how to design the levels and assets. Specifically: How do I make these levels not be just a Point A to Point B, but something the user can experience? Also: How will the assets add to this?

Many videos have been viewed, and old platformers dusted off.

Specifically, videos/gameplay of:

Castlevania: SOTN
Little Big Planet
Metroid
Super Metroid
Yoshi's Story
Donkey Kong
Mega Man
Etc...

Since a good amount of these were 2D and did not utilize any type of tracks system, they were mainly for level layout. However, I did find some things to keep in mind when incorporating aspects into a 3D platformer. One of the main aspects was: make it easy/forgiving to judge distances for jumping areas.

I've got some good ideas in mind now, but we'll see if those ideas still work after hearing EA's presentation.

First Playable and the Future

From the art side, Tom and I have started modeling character and assets.

Tom got the character done and it looks great.

Umbrella checkpoint and lotion bottles are on me, and they're done except for textures. I'll be uploading those soon.

Tom and I are exploring different styles for textures right now and we're thinking of a more cartoon style similar to Kirby and Mario.

We're also working on a better more stylized skybox that fits what we're already doing.