The levels and how we came up with them

Once our game had all the essential systems working, we knew we should start making levels.

We participated at a local jam site at the University of Tartu, so we took the opportunity to sit down in front of a whiteboard and discuss the ideas we had for the levels.

We knew we shouldn't plan to make the game too long just to get the story across, and we should limit ourselves to three levels at most.

Overview

These were our plans at first:

• The first starts you in the city

  • You get introduced to the basic controls like movement and interaction through the tutorial.
  • The environment should convey the sense of ruin and tragedy
  • You should be able to go through collapsing buildings to get familiar with platforming.

• The second level establishes more of the story and provides platforming challenges in the power plant itself

  • You find notes, signs of people escaping, signs of people failing to escape
  • The environment is dangerous and unstable, you need to platform to continue

• The third level ends the story at the reactor

  • There should be a tiny minigame like removing panels from the reactor core as the radiation increases
  • The game should end with a cutscene

How it went

During development, we spent a lot of time getting the look and sound of the game right, so we had to cut back on our goals for the levels. This is usually how it goes during gamejams though. In the end, we were proud to have made a game with a distinct story with a beginning, middle, and ending. I think the time we spent getting the look and feel of the game right paid off since everyone seems to be enjoying it so far. Still, we can't help but feel like there is potential for so much more in this game.

See for yourself?

We already got the votes we need, but if you feel like checking it out here is the link.

Please let us know what you thought or which parts you would like to see more of.