Martin Vilches

       For this project, we were assigned to continue making Megaman levels, but this time there was a change in the limitations. The theme for this project was Jungle/Forest, so the rain ideas started with trees and Jungle. Another thing that came to mind was the temples and the traps, which could have a vine/bushy decoration around them. Also, for this new Megaman level, I wanted the player to have more available paths so that the player feels like there are more options to choose from. We were allowed to use 3 weapon types for this project. The default weapon, the arrow/plunger, and the c.kick were ideal for my idea for the level. Next came the game concept; I designed it so there were a lot of death pits and ladders, and there needed to be paths and keys available to the player. After finishing designing the level, I brought it to Megaman maker, and then it was a moment for the level to be playtested. I had the chance to have many students playtest my level, and ...

  We were tasked to update our last Megaman level and improve it. We had to fix the problems presented in the previous playtest as well as improve it. During my last playtesting session, I was informed that the level had some inconsistencies with the instructions and did not need to include bosses. In addition, we were enabled to use doors and keys to enhance the player's gameplay experience. Taking advantage of this opportunity, I was able to fix many of the things pointed out to me. Using the feedback given during the last playtest, many changes were made to the level. Starting by removing the bosses, they were good and gave a better feeling of completion to the level; however, in the instructions, it was specified that they were not enabled. I decided to find strong enemies but not bosses, and the two chosen achieved the objective successfully. In the end, we were supposed to have an orb that will be a finish line, so that was also added to this updated version.  Another fi...

  For the Level Design Class, we were tasked to create a level with a program named Megaman Maker. This tool allowed us to use Megaman assets and create our own levels with them. The project was to create a level Western themed with a limited range of weapons, time and assets. Using the Wester Topic, the first thing that came to my mind was cowboys, miners, caverns, and many other things mostly related to the Gold Rush. When thinking of assets that would fit with the topic, I found a cowboy enemy with a revolver, a miner with a shield and throwable pickaxes, and little hidden insect-looking enemies. I decided that a mine setting would be the most suitable for my level, since I had found many useful assets related to mines and caverns. Having somewhat of an Idea of what I wanted the level to be and what assets I wanted it to have, I started constructing the level, with a rough sketch I made on paper, and waited for the next class for a group of classmates to play test the game. Duri...

  The assignment was to create a level with a theme of aliens and a prison break theme. My idea was to create a post-apocalyptic prison where two prisoners tried to escape. The prison would be filled with aliens and locked doors. The doors would be locked, and the players would need to collect the keys to escape the prison. In the level, there would be many doors and a couple of bosses, one at the middle of the playthrough and another at the end. This level is linear; there is only one way of finishing the level. Maybe a semi-linear design would have made it more interesting; however, there would be a chance for the player to get lost and not understand where to go when finishing the level. In my last project, there was an excess of detail in the level design. So in this assignment, I decided to make something more simple. I decided to put more thought into the mechanics and to balance the game to be playable instead of putting heavy detailing.  Playtesting: During the playtes...

  During this last week, we had the chance for the players to re-playtest our level, and I was able to receive more feedback from the playtesters. Most of it was positive feedback. However, there are also many things that can be improved.  There was a positive Reaction to the enemies being more balanced; however, now it turns out they were very weak. So now the players were able to have short fights with the enemies. I tried to solve the too-strong enemies problem by reducing the enemy's defense points to almost none, which made the players have ridiculous damage to the enemies and were able to kill most easy enemies with one turn. What could be improved here would be balancing the defense stat depending on how deep in the dungeon the players are, therefore making the enemies stronger. Another positive reaction was when there was a planned revealing for rooms; this time around I was aware when players were moving, and there weren’t any times in which a player rolled and walk...

This week, we were assigned a group to playtest our simple DND map with a basic rule sheet given to us. The map was meant to be simple and under 20 minutes. They chose the Mage and the Knight characters for their playthrough which was a good combination, both were very strong characters. The playtest went surprisingly well, and there was a lot of feedback given me about what I should change for the map to be more enjoyable. ● What Went Right: The playtesters seemed to really enjoy the map's theme; they were very involved in the choose your own path topic surrounding the map. There were many paths available for them to take and explore. The variety and attention to detail were something they noticed and appreciated, and that showed me that good level design was a pivotal concept to grab the player’s attention. Because there were many paths available for the player to choose from, the players decided to separate to cover more terrain. There were evenly distributed enemies and bosse...

12/09/2022   Postmortem  Unit 3 Martin Vilches – Group 2 Our last game of the semester is Storyteller’s Lie. This 2 (or more) player game consists of one of the players coming up with a story that will contain 1 - 3 lies. There is a one-minute preparation period for the player to develop the story. Depending on the lies that the player uses, the points they can get; however, if the other player guesses what the lies are, then they lose the points. For this project, our main goal was to achieve a party game aimed at late teens to adolescents, and we managed to make a game that achieves this. This game follows the player vs. player pattern, so two or more players can play it. Our main plan was to make this a 2-player game, but after making it, we discovered that more players would make the game fun and become a party game. During the development process, there was a lot of debate on how to make the game and achieve the game’s objective. At first, we wanted to make a card game th...