Level Designer & Creative Director

FALL 2021 - FALL 2022

The Jungle

On the game’s third semester, to limit the scope of our project, the team wanted to transition from an open style world to a more linear experience. This meant a drastic change in level design.

From there, I began work on the game’s second and biggest level, The Jungle.

The goals - The JUNGLE

  • Create a mid-tier difficulty level.

  • Create a satisfying enclosed Engagement curve.

  • Introduce two mechanics: Mama Pogs and Sinking Rocks.

  • Around 5 - 8 minute playtime length.

  • Give the area a unique landmark players will remember.

research & references

Starting the process in the research phase, I went back to our classic inspirations of Super Mario Sunshine. I looked at the level “Pianta Village.” That was the level that gave me the most jungle feeling with it being an enclosed space and slightly darker. However, I found the layout of the level was not something I wanted to use as reference. It was far too open and flat for our game.

I turned my attention to another game I took inspiration from on this project quite a lot, Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom. In that game, the level “Kelp Forest” gave me a good perspective of how to create the Jungle atmosphere I strived for. The level contains water hazards such as rivers and lakes I could also draw inspiration from.

mechanic glossary

  • Flower platform that gives the player a jump boost.

  • Fruit that can be picked up and fed to a Pogglewonk. Once a Pogglewonk is fed it will allow the player to jump on its back for a jump boost.

  • Bird-like NPC character

  • A giant Pogglewonk which is missing three smaller Pogglewonks. Once the child Pogglewonks are reunited with the mother, the player is rewarded.

  • Flower platform that moves between two locations on a timer.

  • An icky substance which is polluting the land of Pogglerock. The player must use their water gun to wash it away.

  • A Platform that sinks when stood on with a fruit. In earlier iterations a fruit was not required for it to sink.

Version 1 - initial design

Version 1 - Zone 1

Zone 1 was the “Set-Up” and “Hook” of the level.

Players would have the ability to explore the “first floor” of the jungle to their heart’s content, gaining collectibles for their efforts.

Two rivers would flow down the center with moving flowers floating downstream. Players would use these flowers to navigate this section.

In concept, I wanted this to be the area players were free to explore before being set on a more linear path. Some may skip it and some may explore the entirety.

To progress, players would be able to climb upwards through some platforming challenges.

Version 1 - Zone 2

Zone 2 featured the “development” stage of the level.

Players would continue elevating upwards through the jungle, encountering a new platform known as the Sinking Rocks.

The Sinking Rocks would be on a river above a waterfall. This waterfall was the planned “landmark” for this level.

Players would eventually come across a landing with four Pogglewonks all looking for their mother, this would be the introduction of another new mechanic.

The Mama Pog would be hidden in a cave nearby. However the player would easily be able to find her due to their being pollution covering the entrance that the player must get rid of.

I intended for this to be the area I can introduce the new mechanics but I feel this made the section not flow well at all - more on that later.

Version 1 - Zone 3

Zone 3 featured the “turning” stage of the level.

For this area I wanted to introduce the most challenging fruit puzzle we had so far in the game. It was going to require you to drop a fruit on the floating river platforms introduced earlier. You would then need to follow the fruit down the river and feed it to the AI. I felt this would be a good spin on the fruit mechanic introduced in earlier levels while combining it with the river flowers players experienced in the Jungle.

After players completed this challenge, they would be awarded with collectibles and a path forward into Zone 4.

Version 1 - Zone 4

Zone 4 was the final section and contained the “resolution” of the level.

I wanted this section to be the final walk through the jungle. A place where the player took a cool down from the level and just walked and look at the game’s amazing art.

There is not much art on display in this section currently as this was still very early on in development.

Reflection/feedback

To put it bluntly: Version 1 was an absolute dud of a level.

The biggest problem by far was Zone 1. When playtesting, I found players would instantly get lost and the path forward was not clear enough.

Another problem was that the encounters of the level felt very chaotic. There was no flow to the level and players felt lost at the encounters. On top of that players felt their was no skill required for platforming which is an important factor of our game. It felt like a breeze to walk through.

As a disclaimer, in this early development build the game was fairly unstable. Many glitches also were encountered during playtesting which impacted the data. However, I felt the data that was able to be gathered was still impactful and needed to be acted on.

Version 2

Version 2 - Zone 1

Zone 1 once again contained the Set-Up and Hook. This time much more defined.

From the starting position, players will see two areas to go, a place higher up that cannot currently be reached and a tree off to the side across the river.

Crossing the river is an easy platforming challenge. Once across, players would be reintroduced to our fruit carrying mechanic. Once they pick up the fruit they must take it back across the river.

This moment is where the Hook comes into play. Players stepping on the rock they used to cross the river will find it will now sink with the weight of the fruit. Quickly players must jump back to the starting area.

This is a much better introduction to the Sinking Rocks as it feels much more cinematic in nature, not just randomly thrown in. This section acts as a great, and textless tutorial for the mechanic.

Version 2 - Zone 2

Zone 2 is the start of the development section of the level.

I consider this section an expansion of the previous one, minus the sinking rocks. Players must now feed two Pogglewonks fruit. The trick is there is only one tree.

Players would solve this puzzle by jumping down, grabbing a fruit, feeding the first Pogglewonk, then carrying a second fruit to the second Pogglewonk by bouncing off the first. The player would then take the second Pogglewonk into Zone 3.

If this whole process sounds a bit chaotic and messy, don’t worry, it was. I wanted to provide a small but easy platforming challenge while expanding our fruit mechanic. This trains the player to use fruit in a different way while preparing them for harder challenges in the future.

Version 2 - Zone 3

Zone 3 continues the development of the level.

This time we have a challenge that requires not only platforming, but using our main mechanic of cleaning pollution. To simplify the challenge, there is once again only one Pogglewonk needed to be fed.

The Fruit Tree and Pogglewonk are separated by four sinking platforms and a whole bunch of pollution. Players must traverse these sinking platforms while also making time to drop the fruit and clean the pollution blocking their path.

This section proved to work quite well as a challenge. I personally enjoyed how I implemented platforming on the level’s core landmark, the watefalls. I also used the pollution and collectibles as a form of guidance which worked flawlessly.

Version 2 - Zone 4

Zone 4 is the final area of the “development” phase of the level.

This is the second iteration of the “one tree and multiple Pogglewonks” which was introduced earlier. This time there are a total of four Pogglewonks that need to be fed. Due to having so many there is very little platforming to be done here with virtually no risk.

The trick to this section is that only one Pogglewonk needs to be fed for the player to continue forward. The others will just provide players a pathway to an extra collectible, or just eat fruit to be a pest. It effectively was a guessing game as to what Pogglewonk would actually help you proceed.

While I felt this section had a decent concept, the execution was lacking. The Pogglewonk AI was prone to glitching here, and overall, the area turned out time-consuming and unrewarding.

Version 2 - Zone 5

Zone 5 is the official turn of the level and it features the final new mechanic of the game: The Mama Pog.

The actual section is quite simple, the baby Pogglewonks are all already right next to the Mama Pog. This makes the task as simple as just cleaning the babies. Once all of the babies are cleaned, the Mama Pog will lower the rock she sits upon in a very cinematic sequence. This leads into the final section.

extra - Change in thinking

Previously the Mama Pog appeared midway through the level. Moving it to the end not only reflects the way I wanted this level to flow, but a change in the way the entire game would flow.

As I was the Creative Director on this team, I spent time assisting other Designers while creating my level. Throughout the entire game we realized the way we introduced mechanics would turn out random or sloppy. To correct this, I created a system that would connect all the levels and introduce a better flow to our mechanic introductions. For the climatic section of every level, we would introduce a new mechanic. This mechanic will then be the centerpiece of the next level. That way players can be taught ahead of time and the next level can focus on creating more exciting experiences.

Version 2 - Zone 6

Zone 6 is the final area of the level. This area is strictly a cooldown and mostly a “walk in the park.” There is no pollution or challenging platforms. Just a couple jumps and an overlook of the area you have already explored. I included the overlook in order to give players a sense of accomplishment. Players can look over the level to see the environment you just helped saved, and then continue on to the next level.

To get to the next level, players will hop onto a floating flower which will transport them through a cutscene.

Reflection/feedback

Where the first version was terrible, the second version improved immensely.

From start to finish, there was better pacing, more interesting challenges, and easier navigation. Cutting down some of the bloat and focusing on creating variations of challenges seemed to work the charm.
It was not all sunshine and rainbows though. Through playtesting I still found that Zone 2 and Zone 4 was a bit too complicated for our players.

Zone 2 overall just took too much time. Players would feed the first Pogglewonk, but not realize they need to feed the second one. When they did realize this, they would look around for a new tree instead of going back for the first. Eventually they would make their way through but it proved to be difficult.

Zone 4 was the biggest offender. As mentioned, the Pogglewonks were extremely glitching in this section. They were not really programmed with this type of interaction in mind. When the scenario actually worked it still was not very fun. Players would not understand how things happened and would mostly just get lucky. The scenario also was a big departure from the previous iterations of challenges. It seemed like the biggest hole in the pacing of the level. This was the greatest source of problems in the level and it was by a wide margin.

Player feedback also showed that the level focused a bit too heavily on our fruit mechanic. Players wanted to see more core platforming challenges without being bogged down by the fruit. Areas like Zone 2 and 4 are the heaviest fruit areas in game, so this feedback adds more fuel to fire of why these areas needed to be looked at again.

Now there was other small problems like platforms being a bit too far, or pollution needing to be moved around. Overall though, an amazing improvement and step up from the first version according to the data gathered.

Version 3

Version 3 - Zone 1

Zone 1 only has two relatively minor changes in this version.

The first is the addition of pollution to the platform. This is to help guide players in the right direction as players know pollution is their main objective. There was no problems with guidance in this area before but this now helps double down on it.

The second small adjustment is the platform size has been increased to make this introduction easier and less difficult. This is a tutorial and hook sequence, it’s supposed to be exciting and interesting but not difficult.

Version 3 - Zone 2

Zone 2 has been switched from a fruit challenge to a normal platforming challenge. This is in response to the feedback where players felt there was too many fruit interactions which bogged down the experience of the level.

So now instead of fruit, players have a simple jump to a bouncing flower to cross the gap. Players also have the choice to jump down to the previously mandatory area below the platform. This area now contains collectibles to give a reward to the players that explore.

Once across the gap, the players see two moving flowers going up and down. They must use them as a staircase to access the next section.

Version 3 - Zone 3

Zone 3 has very little changes. The only notable one is the size of platforms on the first river are slightly enlarged to make the jumps easier. The platforms on the second river remain small to add more challenge.

Version 3 - Zone 4

Zone 4 is now an expansion of the previously reworked Zone 2. Now you once again have a gap but with two bouncing flowers. These flowers also have pollution on them which means players must clean while platforming. There is still a side collectible area like the first iteration but it is literally on the side instead of down below.

The floating flower staircase is also included in this new Zone. It has almost no difference from the first iteration, except the staircase goes a tad bit higher.

Version 3 - Zone 5 & 6

Zone 5 also has very little differences. The only significant change is the Mama Pog is now covered in pollution. This just adds a bit more pollution to the level.

The same goes for Zone 6. There was no notable changes other than the final moving flower has been brought to the center of the final area.

Reflection/feedback

This third version of the level had put it into a great position. At this point we were already coming into the deadlines for the semester, and the level was at its final stages.

The new reworked Zone 2 and 4 were very well received in playtests. No longer did the level feel bogged down by the heavy reliance on fruit. Instead we had a good mix of platforming, cleaning, and fruit.

There was also rarely any problems with guidance and tutorials. Players understood the way both the Mama Pog worked and the Sinking Platforms.

The only problem left is that some of the pollution felt arbitrarily placed. Which is somewhat true to an extent. While the game was being developed we were getting more pollution assets. To compensate for this I purposely wanted to wait for the last stage of development to do another pass on this level’s pollution. I had a good skeleton for how I wanted it to be, but it was time to add the meat.

final version

final version - Video

Final version - additions

This final version was an extreme polish phase. As you can see from the screenshots the pollution is much more attached to the world. Now this place looks like an actual polluted area instead of just having a bunch of weird balls floating everywhere.

There is one new addition despite this being the final polish version. During development and playtesting, I found players would actively attempt to shoot the Pogglewonks off of the cliffs. While in earlier iterations this could have actually broken the game, I decided to pay homage to it by adding in a small Easter egg.

Now there is a Pogglewonk standing high and proud on a pedestal above the waterfalls. If players shoot it, which they almost always do, they will bare witness to the Pogglewonk screaming and falling to their doom. It is a very cute Easter egg, and for their efforts they are rewarded with 3 collectibles.

post-mortem

After finishing this project, I had many regrets. The biggest regret by far was the fact I felt the level was not challenging enough. Maybe it comes from my countless hours of playing or just generally being decent at video games. I felt for my type of gamer archetype, the level didn’t satisfy my needs for a more difficult challenge.

However, after some time had passed. I ended up replaying the level and game from start to finish and realized that even for somebody like me, the level was satisfying. I think I did a great job in adapting to the playtesting feedback and it ended up working out for the better.

The biggest regret is that I did want to have some sort of branching paths of extra content. When I added the Easter Egg in the final version of the game, I realized that hidden type of detail adds a lot more depth to the game’s levels. Something you can miss or not see the first time, makes a replay all that much more better.

One of the reasons I never pursued trying to add more side areas was due to the fact that our Artists bandwidth could not handle that extra set dressing that would require. Our game is beautiful, there is no doubt about that, and our artists worked super hard to accomplish that. So while I would have wanted more side areas for gameplay, I don’t regret not pursuing it as the impact on the team would have came back to haunt us.

Overall, I’m extremely satisfied with this level. Of course I could have done more with more time and resources, however, what was accomplished was amazing. The level not only looks beautiful but plays extremely smoothly. It may not be the most difficult level in existence, but it is a an interesting environment with interesting challenges.