(January 2018)
Transmission is a puzzle top-down platformer where the player objective is to avoid getting caught and reach the top floor of the building. The player carries a boombox around that they can use to either stun the enemies, by putting them to dance, or making the enemies move towards the player, which is the only state where the player can open the doors to progress.
Here is a video of the base gameplay:
Contribution: For this short, two-three day project, I was tasked to design a level where we could create different paths and puzzles, and being structurally accurate with the building. I was also tasked with making the Level-related scripts and features, like fog of war and character movement between floors.
During my time designing the levels, I quickly understood the value of Symmetrical levels and how to turn them into Asymmetrical Designs. It was an interesting concept since I had to create a new experience with the same base level for every floor. The levels had the following base design:
The green areas represent Elevators, the basic start and finish.
Each level had different sections of blockade in many different locations. This made it possible for us to challenge the player with different puzzles in different areas of the level.
Reflection: Apart from the Level Design lesson, I learned a lot of things from the people there, like methods of team building, good production techniques, and some life lessons regarding Source Control. The reason why I have very little to show from this project is due to the last lesson I mentioned; we had an issue where someone pushed new content without pulling the latest version of the level. This resulted on the level file getting corrupted and on the team losing progress. Luckily for my team, one of us had not pulled the latest commit, making it possible for us to save the project for the presentation. I then understood the importance of every teammate to be on the same page, and to make sure that everyone has equal understanding on the software being used.
If you are interested in the project or would like to know more, here is the link to the Global Game Jam website: https://globalgamejam.org/2018/games/pandoras-music-box