{"id":11674,"date":"2019-11-12T04:01:51","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T04:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/?p=11674"},"modified":"2019-11-17T21:01:17","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T21:01:17","slug":"level-design-seagulls-snack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/?p=11674","title":{"rendered":"Level Design: Seagull’s Snack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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My game is Seagull\u2019s Snack, a collection game in which a seagull moves along the beach eating food. As this was the first game I had ever built, I chose to stick with a simple theme as not to overcomplicate any part of the game. The idea of a seagull collecting food on a beach, while not the most inventive, felt like an idea that was clear and concise, and was still able to have an element of playfulness to it. 
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Going into this game, I was unsure how it would turn out, as I don\u2019t have much prior experience with art or game development. As I was worried I would be limited by this, I focused on Costikyan\u2019s idea of creating endogenous meaning within a game. Creating a consistent tone within the game helped give me direction while making the game, as well as unifying the game, so it felt more cohesive, rather than just a sum of its parts. Once I had settled on a world metaphor, the design elements of the game started to fall into place. I knew I wanted the game to look bright and graphic, as I thought it would add to the tone of the game. The more simplistic the art, the more playful the game felt. I chose a color palette that reminded me of vintage postcards of the beach. I didn\u2019t want the colors of the game to be overwhelming, but I still wanted the game to have a nice, beachy vibe.
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    The choice in designing collectibles felt obvious, having ice cream and sandwiches as positive collectibles, and trash as a negative collectible. These items are all quite easily recognizable and had clear connotations, which helped enforce the world metaphor. I also played around with the sizing of the game objects. All of the collectibles are roughly the same size as each other, as well as the seagull. While a sandwich the size of a seagull might look ridiculous in another context, through the idea of creating endogenous meaning within the game, these choices felt natural and added to the tone of the game.
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    The map of the game varied greatly over the design process. I was worried about making the map feel too congested, or the elements too small. I settled on a horizontal map as it felt the most beach-like, and I used towels as barriers. I chose to place the towels at an angle, to add some dynamics to the game and keep it from being too uniform. Originally, I had been planning on making the game with a vertical map as that was the format of the tutorial, but after making my paper games, I realized that it wouldn\u2019t be the best use of space. In a future version of this game, I might add zones, creating diversity within the map. I didn\u2019t make zones in the game as I had a hard time visualizing how it would affect the map, but if I were to expand on the game, or make different levels, I think adding variability would help create depth within the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One of the parts I enjoy most within the game is the sound. After a long time digging through a website of free sounds, I settled on an upbeat, cheerful song to play as background music. I also added the sound of waves as background noise, to reinforce the world metaphor. Each collectible makes a different sound when picked up; the sandwiches make a munching sound, the chip bags make a crunching sound, and the ice cream makes a slurping sound. I thought that these sound effects would add a fun element to the game, as well as emphasize to the player that they had picked up a collectible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    While the game is simplistic in nature, I focused on creating an easily comprehendible and unified world metaphor based on this concept. I wanted to create a game that was clear to the player what to do, as well as being fun and having a clear aesthetic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    My game is Seagull\u2019s Snack, a collection game in which a seagull moves along the beach eating food. As this was the first game I had ever built, I chose to stick with a simple theme as not to overcomplicate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":233,"featured_media":11837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[365],"tags":[414,415],"class_list":["post-11674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-genres-2","tag-level-design","tag-collection-games","wpcat-365-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/233"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11674"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11923,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11674\/revisions\/11923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}