In the fashioning of a final, working game I expanded the game with levels. Each one requires the collection of a golden orb, which advances you to the next level, and collecting all three golden orbs lets you achieve the quest of “saving your world” :). I also added pink orbs in levels 2 and 3 that are necessary for manipulating your environment and jumping up to collect the golden orb. I lowered the gravity and increased the jump height/speed so that it’s a bit of a “floaty” jump, which works well with the atmospheric space that is Aerium.
First level is quite easy and is meant to introduce the player to the space, as well as teach them to run into the golden orb to collect it. All you need to do is turn 180 degrees and walk across.
Upon reaching level 2, a pink orb appears which helps you on your quest by raising up platforms which were previously unreachable. I placed them partially under the surface to try and hint that you needed to somehow get them to rise up. Interestingly during gameplay most people avoided the pink orb which does this, because they were only supposed to collect the golden orbs so they ran past the pink one. I wonder if the pink color is similar to red which traditionally indicates “danger”? But some people also didn’t notice the pink orb at all. In changing this game from project 4 I raised up all the large bubbles with lights in them so that they wouldn’t be where you walk on the ground, this way you could always see the pink orbs. I’m not sure why people skipped past the pink orb, maybe an indicator like having the color flash a bit would indicate it was important in some way. I think most people didn’t expect it to actually have an effect on the rest of the environment and act as a switch mechanism that raises the platforms.
The final space is level three with the spiraling staircase I was working on before. I shrunk the square-ish steps to be tiny cubes which discourages people from walking up and down them like actual stairs (and it kind of hides the problem I had before with rotation haha). At the same time, it leaves more space for the player to look around at the environment and thus spot the final golden orb at the top. Before, I think the staircase hid some of the view.
I received comments that it was a good amount of challenge, which I’m glad because the two first levels are quite simple I think. For the people who weren’t used to playing first-person games or weren’t used to the floaty jump, it took them awhile to get acquainted to the controls. But the first two levels I thought were relatively simple so I thought I needed to pack on the punch haha. After all you need to save your world, so what is a few tries to save your world for a millenia?
I really thought the level design was a mesmerizing blend of aesthetics with maneuverability. That spiral staircase really stood out to me, especially when you reached a certain altitude and looked straight down at the world slowly spinning around you. Since the bubbles are both the core appearance and the platforms, I think that more difficult levels would seriously ramp up the visual grandeur and amazing visual moments. I especially like how the levels all take place within the same area; it feels like a constantly evolving single world, and I’m looking forward to the potentials you have in drawing everything together in a climactic final level.