Íker Peña Alonso - Surprise 7

Surprise 7 is a map made for the LD Jam 7, organized by Steve Lee on his Discord server.

The theme for this jam was "A Surprise"

(I'm very original when it comes to naming stuff, this will be a recurring thing)

-Planning:

Since Surprise 7 was part of a level design jam, I didn't take too long with the planning phase, as at the time I was highly motivated, and wanted to get into the editor ASAP!

I had previously finished a bigger project (Eiqui Puebla) on which my focus was learning the Hammer editor, and applying some basic ingredients of level design, but the end result didn't fully convince me, and I came out very burned from working on it.

The planning phase on this project was merely limited to brainstorming a sequence for the level, estimating a run time and sketching an overview of the map.

I had previously recieved some feedback from Steve on my last level, and the two main takeaways were, firstly, to reduce the length of the level, and secondly, to improve the pacing.

Quick layout of the level, drawn on Photoshop, with very little explanations.

Having those two things in mind, I decided my level had to feature a constant level of anticipation, and possibly, a sustained uphill in pacing. I also decided it had to be shorter than 6 minutes in length, since I'd been told that that's what most hiring managers are willing to dedicate to a portfolio piece.

-Iterations:

Once the jam was finished, my level was played by a fellow participant of said jam, and he submitted some very helpful feedback. Furthermore, I realised that the curving stairway was actually pretty boring and ugly, so I added a little room inbetween the sewage and the sawmill sections, that added to the anticipation, and also served as a little physics puzzle.

These changes were reflected on this LinkedIn post.

You can find a link to play this map here. (Also on my itch.io)