Level Design - Speedrunners: After Dark

Level Design

Speedrunners

After Dark

After Dark was planned to be a small trip through a nightclub. The map features various amount of catch-up mechanics to keep players in the game, with a couple of shortcuts to reward the more skilled players. 

The play testing of this level greatly affected the development. The shortcut at the end of the level that sends the player upwards through a boost was initially too powerful. If a player successfully swung into it they would be rocketed into the sky, which immediately eliminated all players still in the race. To counteract this problem I lowered the boost zone and reduced the power of it.


The second design problem was a vertical drop found in the middle of the night club. This also had the same problem as the shortcut in that players would be eliminated unfairly due to the sudden height change. It also made it difficult to use the catch-up boost found behind the gates as if they player attempted to use it they would be eliminated.



 To fix this problem I added a couple of turns during the vertical descent. This allowed players to use the catch-up mechanic if opened while the player in front still maintained his lead.






The video below shows the level being played using an additional 3 bots. The triggers used to manipulate their behaviour could still be tweaked to improve their overall performance, but overall the bots complete the level well.