"MAZE - Mystery At Zenith" Maps
These are some of the maps for
a MAZE, a "bump-combat" ARPG I've been
working on to get some grips with more traditional action game design.
This here is the first level, The Outskirts. It's intended to be a sort of foyer to the
dungeon proper, a path out of the starting village only partially subsumed by the trappings of
Videogame Dungeon.
Here keys, chests, combat and overall dungeon exploration are introduced lightly,
with few properly dangerous enemies and few additional puzzles, though an observant player can start to engage with the first bits
of the overarching metapuzzle if they know what to do.
This level went through a few passes, and I'm most satisfied with this version I created after taking some queues from the original DOOM. To me DOOM is
a holy handbook of complex action game level design, and it has a lot to teach. Particularly the way it manages the player's curiosity and greed with baited traps
and how it teases its secret areas before they can be accessed.
The Caves is the second accessible map, it's smaller but ramps up the tension a bit. There are some tricky chokepoints with tough enemies, and new enemies are introduced that require a bit
more thought to engage with. Caves is intended to be a more combat-focused map to get the player comfortable with more complex foes, so it's light on puzzles and narrative.
I think it needs a second pass, it's not quite difficult enough.
Catacombs is a quite difficult level that acts as the climax of the first act as it were, followed up with an as-yet unfinished dragon boss. It turns elements of exploration that lead to
nice little bonuses in previous levels into necessary activities to complete the stage. There are quite a few fast enemies that hit hard, and a bit of puzzling navigation in that you never have quite enough keys to feel free-roaming. It may actually be too difficult to appear this early, but I like having the game show some teeth at this point when there are only going to be 12 or so levels.