Akuma A demon trapped in a mask needs your help! Journey to the far away temple, aided by the magic powers of the demon. Project Information Project Length: 8 weeks, half timeGame Engine: In-house (derived from TGA2D) Responsibilities Level DesignGame DesignSound Effects A zoomed out view from LDtk showing the feature gym. Testing the metrics of the player verbs ensured we could achieve the control tightness we sought. Tight Controls The most interesting challenge with designing levels for this game was the controls. We wanted to nail that sense of flow that came from both the control responsiveness and tight levels of Celeste. The controls for Akuma were constantly polished and the jump, double jump and dash taken into account as you unlocked them. This also meant a lot of iterating on the level design, sometimes down to a tile’s difference. The group started doing impromptu speedrunning challenges, which was both fun and useful. An early look at the final level. I wanted to strike a balance between challenge and making the player feel powerful, since they now had access to all powers in the game. Speed Demon We knew from the start that we wanted to account for both new and returning players as best as we could. That’s why the group speedruns were invaluable, as we could tweak minute details. In the end, I think we managed that goal. If you’d played the levels before, you’d start seeing the possibilities. A small skip here, a sequence of jumps there. I’d like to call this balance between designing for both first and n’th time players “stopping is an option.” Work in progress view of level 2, Fushigi Forest. Pixel Perfection As a long time pixel art afficionado, I had the opportunity to communicate even closer with our graphics artists. As luck would have it, there was a shared love of pixel art among us. The programmers also made sure that the presentation of all these lovely little dots was as sharp and jitter-free as possible. Return to Portfolio
