Avatar Trials: Ninja Uprising PASSED!

Avatar Trials: Ninja Uprising PASSED the XBLIG reivew process! We get to publish! This means that 4/26/2013 is the day of the Avatar Trials! This has been a long journey of iteration and hard work. I am very excited to see how the game is received. During the EAE demo day that was followed by 3 local news stations: See the #1 game program on the news! Fox 13:http://bit.ly/15PO9c8 , KSL:http://bit.ly/ZnoHra , DesNews:http://bit.ly/10yIHtF , we had many people play our game and there were pretty impressed! They liked the use of the Avatar, ninja abilities, levels, and the platforming. We had people play our game and beat the first level. They would then leave. However, they would come back for more! They had to beat the other 2 levels. It was exciting to see how much people liked our game.

New Level Screenshots

Here are some great new screenshots. I removed the player and its components to take screenshots. I only kept the player shadow so I knew where I was while I took screenshots.

Avatar Trials: Level Evolution

In my last blog I mentioned that iteration is key. I am posting the evolution of the Avatar Trials level design.

The earliest levels I have are below. Level design is a lot more complicating than it sounds. It seems like you can just throw a bunch of assets in and be done. That works if you want a level that feels like poo. The pictures below may look very lame, but they could be a fun level to play on. The reverse is that you could have a beautiful level, but could play like crap. This post is about how iteration makes your game fun!

The pictures above were some concept art done by Derek Young. This was to show how the level layout of our main level and how the player gets around. This idea was mostly scrapped. This concept centered more about stealth and parkour. We instead evolved into a time trial game with floating platforms.

This was the first level created. It was on an island and this island would contain the player. They would have to run around the island to complete tasks and parkour.

This concept art was to show instead of being trapped on one island, the islands instead float in the sky. This creates tension with the player since if they fall, they die. We took the floating idea to the next level. In the current levels we use floating platforms and floating islands.

This concept art was to show instead of being trapped on one island, the islands instead float in the sky. This creates tension with the player since if they fall, they die. We took the floating idea to the next level. In the current levels we use floating platforms and floating islands.

                                         

Level design is all about iteration and play testing. Don't be afraid to throw everything out and start over, but learn from what you did. Also, don't make your game a secret. Let everyone play your game. Even people you know that don't play games. If they can't pick up and learn to play it then something is wrong.