4-Koma

4-Koma was my introduction to Mega Man Maker. The brief was to make a level with 4 rooms, with proper cadence in mind.

I did it at DigiPen Bilbao, in the third trimester of my second year, in the Level Design module. It was a solo assignment and took me 4 days: the level, and the video.

Mega Man is a game where you’re meant to run and gun. What I wanted to try was a level where the environmental hazards are the main focus instead, something I took from Celeste. The player I had in mind is someone who knows what a platformer is but can be new to the game itself. They should feel like they are never overwhelmed, but challenged enough by the time they get there. My rule was to follow the same idea of scaffolding as Celeste: try not to put in more than 1 new mechanic at a time; iterating on a mechanic the player has already seen is fine.

The hard part

I had never made a platformer before, and this is one of the cases where I had no insight to work from. So I first went through all the blocks and items available to me and kept a mental note of what I had, then threw everything into a level, chasing the feeling of speed from Celeste, and tried to find what felt enjoyable to play. I started with too much and ended up with too little, and the level lacked depth. Talking with people around me about cadence is when an insight into the level structure came, and from there it was tightening how the player would feel as they played. I had my friends playtest it. They said the level was a little easy and could have more challenges here and there, so I added gaps here and there, but nothing that would actually increase the difficulty much. That might have been one of my mistakes on this assignment.

The grade

I got a modifier of +1. I was told:

“Fine level based on timing challenges and speed. The pacing curve is a bit underwhelming on a 4-screen level, but it would be a great segment if it was an 8-screen level.”

Looking back

I would have played around with more of its tools earlier, to get a better grasp of what the software can do, then I’d have been able to properly scope out what would make the different rooms similar yet unique in how they use the different obstacles. I improved from here in the next assignment, This Is How You Do It.