I designed and made a second test level for Akuto Zero. The level layout is much simpler, with less items and no destructible objects. I think this level fixes a lot of the issues I had with the first level, primarily readability.
I designed this level (called Temple) to work on the strengths of the first level (called Fast Food), which was to keep it simple and be primarily focused on combat. This meant I didn’t include no weapon pick-ups nor destructible walls. I am not sure yet if the lack of destructible walls makes Temple less interesting, so I will have to test this out.
I ensured that the fights are not focused at spawn points (green circles) by placing them away from the main paths in the level (black lines). But I will not be sure if this works without extensively testing Temple in the real-world. A future plan for the game could be on updating the AI in the game so that they can traversal the level correctly. This will massively speed up testing and also allow players to use AI in versus game modes.
The level layout in Temple is much better than Fast Food as there are multiple ways to get from A to B, even without destructible walls. One aspect of the level layout that is not good in Temple is that players can kill other players from the other side of the room by shooting. This issue should not be too difficult to fix, as it only requires modifying terrain height of the platforms in the level.
The readability is better in Temple compared to Fast Food, but still not at the standard I want. I believe the issue is not only with the number of items on the level, but the colors of the items. All the items are of the same shade of color so players cannot distinguish between foreground and background objects. A simple solution will be to make the background objects to be desaturated in color compared to the foreground objects. Again, this issue and with the level layout issue is something I will keep in mind when designing the next test level.
Below you can see the spawn points and the paths a player can take in the level.
