3. Designing Levels

Each of the gameboards was designed with the top-down camera in mind. The size of the UI, coupled with needing to keep everything in frame and not have the NPC appear too small, limited the maximum size of each gameboard. This meant the boards had to be about 4 by 6 tiles in size. Since the top-down camera made it difficult to see the NPC's orientation given their small size on the screen, an arrow graphic appears around the NPC whenever it stops moving.

Each of the gameboards was designed with the top-down camera in mind. The size of the UI, coupled with needing to keep everything in frame and not have the NPC appear too small, limited the maximum size of each gameboard. This meant the boards had to be about 4 by 6 tiles in size. Since the top-down camera made it difficult to see the NPC's orientation given their small size on the screen, an arrow graphic appears around the NPC whenever it stops moving.

There are three things to keep in mind in designing the boards:

• Keep it compact
• Introduce new concepts one by one
• Make players think

Although the 4x6 area was limiting, working within those constraints made sure boards never got out of hand, and players felt like they had a quick sense of progression through the game. Players should be able to look at the board and figure out a solution quickly, but given the nature of command input, they also need to think through the steps in their heads before hitting the execute button. The five boards were designed to start simple and introduce one new concept per board before wrapping up with board 5 as the final test.