For an assignment we have to design a tutorial level for a 2d platformer, one that will gently ease the player into new situations and help them learn naturally. My concept is of a mouse on it's way to the Big Cheese, collecting cheese bits and dodging mousetraps and cat paws along the way. The cat paws can be ridden up if you are crafty, though. I bought myself Rhythm Heaven Megamix with holiday money over the break and music from one of the mini-games, Rat Race (the characters are actually mice despite the name), keeps playing in my head whenever I work on this.
Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Nintendo SPD1, 2015, 3DS
I didn't really want the level to be in a kitchen though. I toyed around with the idea at first but then I couldn't really figure out what the platforms would be and how the mouse would be climbing. Chairs and a table seemed like a good idea at first, and riding the cat paws ended up being a concept that carried over from this idea, but it just didn't seem to make sense. So, if it wasn't going to make sense anyway I decided to go for something more abstract. The background is colors that are reminiscent of a kitchen, but the pattering and platforms are more of the candy colored abstractions found in Kirby games.
Kirby's Dream Land 3, HAL Laboratory, 1997, SNES
Another thing I struggled with were the "spike" traps. I wasn't sure how literal I should be. Mouse traps were the first thing that came to mind but I wasn't sure how well that would work, so I thought about other things. Stationary cat paws... A Fork... But I decided to just go with the mouse trap. You can see some of my spit balling on the paper version of my map.
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