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[Caio]

Uh... so... I sketched up a level using the same size as Arne in the original design document. I think it could be sewers. Obviously, feel free to change anything or not to use it at all.

I'm using basically the same color pattern as Arne: Yellow is obstacles; brown is ladders; grey is a door; white is the key that open grey doors; red is enemy; cyan is points/treasure/whatever good; red is enemy or trap; light green is what you have to get to get out of the level. Also, dark green is a door that opens and closes every ~2 seconds (GB can be crushed by them), blue is water, the darker brown is a trampoline and purple is a platform that rockets eight tiles up when you stand on it for a second.

Expected level flow:

Guy Balding starts on the top-left corner, next to the uppermost ladder. He climbs down, perhaps gets some timing right to get the treasure beneath the dark green doors, gets past the broken ladder (the one above the huge fall), climbs down and up again and jumps on the water. The fish (red) swiftly chases him, but he manages to escape (for the player to be able to escape, he'd have to jump when the fish is near the bottom). Mister Balding then leaves the fish behind and proceeds, jumping over the traps (three next red squares) and grabbing another treasure.

Hey, Balding Boy, what is that? The fish just grabbed that underwater key! Our hero climbs back all the way up and bravely jumps on the fish's head. The foe, surprised, spits out the key, which Guy quickly takes.

He doesn't climb the first ladder because he notices the enemy and the obvious lack of anything useful up there, but he does climb the second one. After grabbing all three treasures, he decides to take a chance and fall on the apparently puffy enemy. Good thinking, Guy! He falls right on the critter and bounces back up all the five tiles he needed to reach the key. He takes it, bounces again to get back to where he was and goes all the way down back to the lower level.

Skilfully dodging the three jumping menaces, he then grabs the next treasure, using the platforms above to evade the next enemy. Balding climbs up, grabs one last and deserved treasure and falls on the trampoline, not getting hurt. Had he jumped right away, he'd get boosted up and his head would meet the not-very-friendly Mr. Spike.

Finally, GB picks the last key up, uses the elevator to grab onto the broken ladder, climbs up, opens the three doors, gets what he was searching for (his game?) and goes out through the same hole in the ceiling he used to get in.



What you think?

...

...holy crap. I was just about to press the "post" button when I realized GB is almost two tiles high.

Stupid me. 

Well, I think this level could be used in some bonus screen where the character gets... smaller... and jumps higher... or something. If not, that's fine.

[BMcC]

Easy Solution:  Use the actual screen size, and add a little more height to the ceilings.

(Why wouldn't you use the real game screen size to begin with, I wonder?  )

EDIT:  I really like the big fish swimming around, and having to wait 'til it's at the bottom.  (Though, the water is supposed to be solid... Hm.)

This is a good start!

[Caio]

Isn't it 256x160, which is 32x20 tiles?
I made it in 32x20 size so it would be easier to draw and then enlarged it.

And yeah, I'll try to heighten the ceilings.

(@Edit: Thanks! )

[BMcC]

It's 256x192 px, so 32x24 tiles.

That only gives you four more rows to play with though, so edit wisely. 

[Caio]

Awesome!

Everything the same, except for the bright yellow square, which is a switch used to deactivate the barrier on the upper right corner (two red squares), and the pink boosting tile, which now boosts ten tiles up.

Expected level flow:
(some things are better explained on the first one)

Guy Balding is back, and now he can actually stand! He climbs down the ladder right next to him and keeps going forward, for he understands there is no reason to use the ladders yet. He climbs down the last ladder, ducks, climbs up and picks up the first key.

This key is perhaps some kind of trap, for if the player uses it to open one of the three doors guarding the bright green square, his progress will be stalled. The player notices it, and Balding uses the key to open the door next to the bright yellow square instead. He activates the switch and decides to try and grab the treasure beyond the dark green doors, which keep opening and closing rhythmically. They are kind of tricky to get past of, but he manages to do it.

He goes all the way up again, waits until the fish is near the bottom to jump on the water so he can escape, climbs the ladder to get out and goes through the now deactivated barrier (laser barrier? stone door?), climbs down the stairs and notices the fish has grabbed the submerged key. He goes back and jumps on the fish, which spits the key to the surface. GB grabs it, climbs down once again, jumps over the trap, evades the falling something, jumps over the jumping enemies and grabs a treasure while doing so and reaches the lowest level.

Balding climbs the second ladder, grabs the treasure, climbs up again, grabs yet another treasure, jumps right on the enemy below, bounces up, grabs the key, bounces on the enemy again and goes all the way back down.

He then evades the three jumping/shooting foes, grabs the treasure and dodges the enemy by jumping back, climbs up, falls on the trampoline, not taking any damage, takes the key, uses the elevator to grab the broken ladder, opens the three grey doors, picks up his game or whatever and goes away using the ladder next to the starting point.

...better?

[Bezzy]

I saw the first one and thought "We're going to need a faster crawl speed!", but you've opened it up nicely already. Well done, sir!

[Xion]

Noice, Akhel! Good job heightening on it while keeping the flow.


Some sloppy ideas for the lawn level. I'm really liking the Idea of the lawn level.
Okay, so there're the doggies. You start in the house or whatever. If you jump on top of the doggy he'll be stunned for a sec maybe, letting you past, but when he comes to he'll go on a rampage for a couple seconds before calming down. If it's raining he won't be around (in his doghouse). The telephone pole looks like it's in the foreground, but it really isn't. Maybe there are kids in the treehouse who shoot at balding with waterguns or toss water-balloons...? K, so then you get to a big tree that you can climb. I don't like the depiction I have here, but there are actually two trees, and you go through the first one and climb between them. The other tree makes up the left border. Then, once you get to the top, there's a kind of maze in the leaves and branches of both trees. There's stuff in there. Watch out for squirrels! You can climb on top of the telephone pole, but that ain't reccommended during a rainstorm. Then you can get down onto the treehouse, where there's some more stuff. You can also jump across those platforms suspended from the telephone wire, but, again, not reccommended in the rain. They lead to something. 'Ventually, you'll open the door that leads to the exit in the tree.

...Honestly I have no Idea. I think I should have just left this one alone.

Edit: I didn't think it was worth a new post; just a cleaned up version.

Ignore the siding on the house. That were a failed experiment.
Also: I cannot (read: it's impossible) come close to replicating Arne's style. It's beyond my physical and mental capacity. The gap is too wide.

[Godspeed]

I love the idea of having a giant tree to climb in. As for the electric lines is it plausible to have them sag under his weight?

[vitaminNewB]

Cool stuff

Akhel:  Very well thought out!  Even though it's abstract for now, I'm feeling it.

Xion:  What?!   Looks good to me.
Man that front lawn level looks pretty dang fun!  I like the idea of having weather affect things.  I like the tan dog, but it doesn't look mean.  I like the idea of the brown dog waking up, getting mad, and going crazy for a few secs too.

Godspeed:  Sagging electric lines would be neat.

Few more random weird ideas.

A3: Forest and House Lawn
Graphics: ...
Enemies: dog, lawnmower, cannibal flower, diving birds, walking shrubs, grouchy neighbor(throws the mornin' paper at you.  He should be pacing back and forth, and when he spots you he'll hurl one at Guy's head)
Traps: pollen, anthill, doggy doodoo
Items: ...
Mechanics:periodic weather changes(?) (like, when it rains, the dog goes to his doghouse, but [giant] worms come out.), water sprinkler, dandelion seeds (the white things that float in the wind) he can grab onto them and float

B5: Laboratory
Graphics: beakers, bubbly liquids
Enemies: mutants, guinea  pigs in lab coats, hamsters in balls
Traps: ...
Items: ...
Mechanics: Night vision mode, glow mode(he drinks the juice from a glow stick),  Teleportation Pads, Maybe he has to put together simple fake/real chemical equations  (h2o) to solve puzzles.

C1: Ice
Graphics: falling snowflakes
Enemies: yeti, coyote/wolf, snow ball machines, or enemy that spits out snow balls
Traps: fishing holes, falling icicles, cold wind(turns him into an ice cube)
Items: ...
Mechanics: slippery surfaces,  sliding ice cubes

..and a little Idea for a Forest Level character dude

mushroomHeadLeafWingMan(please don't ask)   

[Zaphos]

For one of the Forest or Temple-ish areas, we could have a little guy who is "playing" the level music.  When the music stops, the level is filled with inanimate plants and objects, but when it starts again, all the objects come to life.  When you kill the little guy, the level has no more music or life, and so feels desolate.

Oo, there could be multiple of these guys you need to kill to progress through the level, and every time you kill one the music changes to a more "angry" version of the same song (with one less instrument).

[Xion]

Ah, what the heck:

Ignore the siding on the house. That were a failed experiment.
Also: I cannot (read: it's impossible) come close to replicating Arne's style. It's beyond my physical and mental capacity. The gap is too wide.

Okay, so once you get into the tree, you climb up the first few platforms 'till you get to some rotating logs that you have to quickly jump on to get up to a vine and pull yourself up. Then you come to this patrolling squirrel who'll push you all the way back to the bottom of the tree if you get hit by him. So you have to hurry up and jump into one of those spaces above where you'll dangle as if between two ledges, but unable to pull yourself up. Then repeat into the next one when the squirrel runs back the other way, and finally to the end of the corridor. There should be a ladder there. I guess I forgot it. Ok, so jump up, then you come to a room with maybe 2 or 3 squirrels in it. This could be like a mini-boss where, when you enter the room, the squirrels dive into the tree's foliage and pop up every once in a while to dash at you and hit you. Jump and hang onto the cieling and wait for the squirrels to poke their heads out to look for you, then drop down on them and bam!, they're out for the count. Do this to each squirrel, each time they get faster. Then that door will open and -- ok, I forgot to add the way out, but it drops you onto the telephone pole, and that's as far as I got.

Maybe you can cieling-shimmy across the telephone wire, too?

Now that I think about it, I don't think the squirrel mini-battle would fit well in this game...but hey, not my call. Just thought it'd be cool.

[Alec]

Nice!

[ptoing]

This is so nice, I think when I get a bit more time I MUST have to do some gfx for this 

[eobet]

I'm sorry to say that I don't get the tree house thing.

I might have missed something, but the game obviously takes place underground (or inside a tower/HQ/complex or something)... so how come there are blue skies all of a sudden?

Also, to be honest, the graphics doesn't come anywhere near the style of any of the previous mock-ups. 

[Xion]

I might have missed something, but the game obviously takes place underground (or inside a tower/HQ/complex or something)... so how come there are blue skies all of a sudden?

Not obviously, since there's a lawn and forest level. Plus, since they're both at the top of the map there's no inconsistency by having some other level above. All the other levels look like they'd be underground, but since when do games have to make sense?
j/k. (but really...)

Also, to be honest, the graphics doesn't come anywhere near the style of any of the previous mock-ups. 

I already admitted that: I suck ass.