Genre: Pusher Puzzler
Platforms: Android
Tools Used: Unity
Production Time: 3 Weeks
Team Size: 3 Game Designers, 2 2D Artists
Role: Level Design, Gameplay Design
FALL MOON
As part of a mobile project with King, we opted to make a pusher puzzle game using the traditional Moon Festival and the story of the Dragon and the Moon Pearl. In our game, you control the Dragon and move it to bring the Moon Pearl to the goal.
Level 1
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My main responsibility when it comes to the level design was to plan and make the first world that the player has access to.
With the goal of not having any type of on-screen tutorials, I planned each level to teach the player all they need to know when it comes to the basics.
To the left is the first level and it is surprisingly devious for some players to grasp without having any prior knowledge of the game, though most players just test some things out and quickly figure out what they have to do, move the dragon from the left by holding your finger down on the screen and moving in any of four directions, then push the moon into the exit.
Now that the player knows the basics of how to complete a level, the second level in this world shows the player that the moon is affected by gravity.
Pushing the moon to the right will make it fall down right next to the exit, showing the player that the moon will always go down if there is nothing underneath it.
Level 2
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Level 3
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The player now hopefully knows that the moon will fall and therefore in this level we now take it a step further.
To complete this level, the player has to use the dragon’s own body as a bridge before pushing the moon in any direction.
With some of the basics down we now teach the player something that they can actually use the exit tile to drag the dragon over it.
This level also makes use of gravity, the player will push the moon down onto their own body, retracting the body allows the moon to fall straight into the exit.
A common thing in this level is for the player to realize that they can actually retract their own body, most players go anywhere else and will retract the dragon “by accident” before going the intended way.
Level 4
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Level 5
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This level keeps playing with the idea of gravity and using the dragon’s own body.
The player can go straight up and then left, push the moon onto their own body, retract the dragon and keep going straight up, pushing the moon into the exit.
From this point on, we start to ramp the difficulty up a bit.
The player has to use the dragon’s own body to make a platform, use the gravity of the moon and retract more than once to complete this level.
Level 6
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Level 7
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The second to last level introduces another type of technique that is actually used in the previous level though most players don’t realize they did this prior.
Here, the best move involves the player having to double back on the dragon’s body, then push the moon to the left and go up and eventually into the exit.
The last level of world one really steps the difficulty up.
Here, the player has to use all of the things they have learned prior and most people get stuck here for quite some time.
Once completed, the majority of players very much celebrate the victory and it is the most satisfying level to complete so far.
Level 8
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Post-Mortem
This mobile game project gave me a great chance at learning and doing a different type of level design more aimed toward puzzles and a casual audience. I found that planning the amount of levels, what if any mechanics together with how many worlds there would be at the start of the project was crucial and allowed me to set the pace at a better rate. Having a large amount of people playtest our game really gave me valuable feedback which helped me improve the overall experience for old and new players alike.
Download (Android APK)
