Chapter 3.7: Level Design in Photoshop

As mentioned before in my previous post, I can adjust and position the assets in Photoshop now that they are ready. Using the previous finished levels as my reference, I can just replace them with the new assets. 

Assets are Ready :D

 

Before

After

In my first consultation with the lecturers, the first change that I needed to do is the overall key visual. Once I finalize the key visual i can proceed in designing as well as coding later. Turns out this was a really great advice actually. As you can see above, the changes made really helped improved my key visuals. A few things I changed were:

• River - I made it more simple and added waves on the side to give it texture.
• Trees - Much more clearer and detailed compared to the previous. Added leaves texture
• Soil - added them as props to give the level more environment-feel. It also act as a pathway.
• House - Re-edited it in Piskel, added details to the destroyed part.
• Shadows - added to the soil and other parts to give depth.

Adding these changes however was not enough. As you can see there the level still looks empty. Therefore I still need to add props to it to make it more livelier. Also a few lectures wanted an indicator on top of the treasure chests so that itll be easier for the players or non-players to detect the items. Once the additions were done. It looks like this:

 

Finalized

This is much, much better compared to the previous one I did. What I added was:

• Flowers - acts as props. some of them also has animation, which helps improve the mood in the level.
• Indicators on top of the treasure chests - also will be animated
• Grass textures
• Props - Tree stump, Axe on the tree stump, fences and others.

 Most people asked me on why I added thick outlines on the houses and certain props. Some may say its inconsistent with the other graphic assets. While this is true, there's a reason why I did this. In certain games, the outlines play a role to make the graphic stands out among the rest as it is something that the players can interact with. That's why I added the thick outline to indicate the players that they can interact with it.

And that's all there is to the level design. Other parts of the game's map were implemented with the same process. I will show the whole game map soon.