NOT A PLANT
Role
Level Designer
Genre
Platformer
Team Size
12
Date
2019 (4 weeks)
Not A Plant is a third-person platform where you take control of a small creature adventuring through the ruined world in search of Papa.
Importance of Level Design
Early stages of this project we had the goal to allow the player to play the way they wanted. We wanted to create tools for the player and give agency to how they wanted to play with the set tools we provided.
This proved to be problematic to do in 4 weeks and we had a hard time getting gameplay moments and mechanics to click with our main mechanic; Swinging freely. During these 4 weeks, we didn't have anyone who wanted to do level design and we ended up with a rushed version that wasn't good. This project is what put me on the path to dwelling deeper into level design.
I decided to go back to the game after the initial 4 weeks that we had to learn, redo and improve the level design within 1 week.
Main Mechanic
One of the issues with the first design of the level was that it was too noisy. We showed the player everything all at once making it very hard for the player to navigate where they needed to go. I wanted to decrease the noise and make each part of the level have a story that made them memorable, even if the player was there only for a brief moment before swinging away.
A Whole New World
