Post Mortem - Megaman Level 1 (Way too hard, unnecessarily mean)

 So whatever issue I had with DnD is now the complete opposite when it comes to drafting Mega Man levels. My DnD maps were too easy because they were barely playtested other than making sure that encounters were lethal and players could make consistent progress. Since I thought it'd be too daunting to playtest with every combination of classes in mind, I didn't. With Mega Man, I can test every minor change or rotation of block. I can test every thirty seconds if I wanted to. 

 

I put just as much, if not more hours into playing the Mega Man level than I did editing it because there is absolutely no pre-measuring, or assumptions, or rules of thumb that beat rigorous playtesting. Aspects of the level that felt like total garbage to play were slowly worked out. Tight corridors were widened, platforming challenges shifted around one block at a time. Enemies increased in number, increased in difficulty, positioned differently until something finally clicked. Fun was beaten into the product through many hours of grinding. 

And it still wasn't enough! People who put a similar amount of man-hours testing their game liked it because they weren't beginners anymore. People who were still figuring out the controls bailed out on me. This means that on a fundamental level I failed to make a beginner level. The process of iterating my level approximately 10,000 times made me way too disconnected from making something beginner-friendly. I thought the level was too easy or too short, so I made it harder. I kept doing this, then dialed it back a little bit when I heard that my level was too frustrating. I figured if I could finish something in 4-5 minutes, that would give a beginner 10 minutes of playtime.

I was playing a game where checkpoint placement largely didn't matter, where health pickups were fine as just ambient drops from enemies, and whenever a player actually needed either of them (because they might be, you know, beginners) they were SOL because I designed around /my needs/, and not a hypothetical playerbase. 

If I had a chance to fix this level, I would limit the amount of projectile-shooting enemies, swap in the floating shield enemy, not use Pickmen at all, add large health picks every three screens between checkpoints, and fix or remove enemy spawns that are likely to respawn due to backtracking or being pushed back by enemy damage. There are a few absolutely awful areas that can push and pull the player back and forth with damage, effectively constantly healing the enemies as they poke the player to death. Not great! 

 

I do think I successfully created a level that matched the required atmosphere, a lot of people commented on the way my level looked and the way it naturally flowed into itself; inside and outside sections were clearly marked with different music and challenges. I put a lot of effort into making sure that the level was visually consistent, and that the screen wouldn't break or pivot into strange areas whenever they went too far to the left or right. Even though I have a strong suspicion that I playtested way too much and it completely threw out my level's difficulty, it did allow me to find multiple parts of the game that I could control that just felt bad after repeated playtime.

I don't think the entire thing is screwed, and the level itself has strong bones/. I have full confidence I can use this next assignment to make it exactly what it needs to be, with more gentle and obvious introductions for all aspects of it.