The Jungle Level (Concept)

The purpose of this brainstorm was to generate ideas and approaches to designing videogame platform levels. To be honest, I have never made a game before (let alone make assets for one), so this was a great way for finding themes to work with in terms of designing levels. It had already been agreed by the team that there were:

• 5 Environmentally based levels


• City, Jungle, Underwater, Dessert, and Underground


• Pages of a book are collected throughout


• There is a charge station (Sharpener for Pencil power up) at the beginning of every level.
  

So with this brainstorm I wanted to be able to develop concepts based around these elements.

Sketch Key:

Yellow: Charge Station (for Ed’s Pencil weapon)

Red: Comicbook Pages (collectable by Ed)

Green: Moveable elements

Blue: Hidden paths.

This is a idea I have for the Jungle Level. I want it to be dense with many hidden routes that are not immediately obvious to the player. I also wanted it to be vertical so the player would be moving up and down (a maximum of three parts high) through the maze of trees and bushes. The Ink Leeches will take on the form of animals of the Jungle and will attack Ed whenever they get a chance! Birds that swoop, Crocodiles that chomp and plant life that aren’t so friendly!
In terms of this design, I don’t think it is dense enough to resemble a forest. The top section of the level could do with more complexity aside from doing a big Tarzan swing to finish. I also want to put more hidden paths. But that can only be done with a revision to the overall layout to the level first.

My concept is loosely taken from how the Amazon Rainforest is structured into 4 tiers and the way that most Sonic the Hedgehog games are designed this way. In particular Mystic Cave.(Sonic the Hedgehog: 2, SEGA Genesis, 1992).

Amazon Rainforest structure: (The Structure of the Tree)
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC063206/jungles.htm

Sonic 2 Mystic Cave gameplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I_z5n-VaRU


Posted by Dominic Lopez