Cats & Level Design

I'm going to explain my process of designing the level for the game, and the different kinds of mechanics that I had implemented to create the kind of gameplay that I had envisioned. Firstly, I had to create a gym, which is used to test the various mechanics of the player. The gym is a basic level that allows the developer to test and create the metrics for the levels. In my case, I had to get the measures of the thinnest platform possible and how far the player could launch the cats. With the level metrics settled, I could start iterating on my level.

The level is divided into 4 areas, the 1st area being the  tutorial and the 3rd area being the challenging. I did not want to make the final area too challenging as I want the player to complete the level instead of failing after working so hard. The layout is pretty straight forward, the main path always heads upwards with smaller branching paths that encourages exploration. Additionally, having a consistent direction to guide the player towards, the game won't need UI to guide the player to the next area.

To make the level challenging, I added moving platforms that could push cats off the level or have to be traversed over to reach the other side. I did initially thought about adding enemies that the cats have to fight off but I did not have enough time to do it. Creating AI is costly and I'm already working on AI for the cats, it did not make sense for me to create another AI for the enemy. Moving platforms are very easy to implement and challenges the player on control and timing. In the end, I added moving platforms to make the level more challenging.

An issue that I faced while making the level was the use of switches. More specifically, it was whether the player understood which platform was activated after the switch was triggered. This occurred at the 2nd area when the activated platforms used to form the bridge leading to the next area were out of the player's view. It was hard to understand what happened or what has changed as the player could not see what was going on. Additionally, the player had to backtrack and overcome earlier obstacles after triggering the switches.

Fortunately, I managed to solve both issues by making the switch activate multiple platforms instead of just one. An additional platform will be activated to create a bridge to bring the player back without the need to backtrack. With the additional platform within view, the player will at least know that the switch did trigger something rather than not know what has changed.

In conclusion, I started off with creating the level metrics, which allowed me to create a suitable layout that is within the player's mechanics. I managed to create difficulty by creating moving platforms as obstacles instead of relying on action or enemy AI which could cause the project to be overscoped. My only regret is not adding obstacles that encourage the use of cat stacking more often, like really narrow walkways or an obstacle to prevent taller stacks of cats from entering.