Color Schemers

Max and I spent days working on creating two worlds for Monochromaze that would make players feel like they were running in a cramped space without setting up a nightmare of collisions for our programmers to deal with.

This was the black world map for Monochromaze, which was designed to push players toward planning alternate routes of escape, specifically using the wraparound passages at the top and bottom of the map and planning around the more restrictive box that will fade into the center in the white world.

Shady Slopes was the first level we designed and implemented. Our goal with this level was to design two levels that changed how players moved throughout the map. We wanted to encourage wild chases with our Pacman-esque wraparound corridors, but also block off some of those routes as the worlds changed. The bottom center wraparound corridor has spikes that would kill a player who timed their escape poorly. The punishment for dying is only a few seconds of gameplay, but we wanted to encourage our players to be aware of the surroundings in both worlds while running away from someone (or chasing someone down).

We wanted to make the inactive level map still present so that players weren’t overwhelmed with maintaining two separate mental models of the game, so we put dashed outlines on the inactive platforms. We also wanted to communicate to players that the wraparound corridors were connected, so we added portal assets to communicate that better. We ended up using a timer bar rather than a clock with digits because it was hard to read and confusing for players.

We didn’t have time to implement this level, but we were thinking of creating a level that revolved around moving platforms and obstacles/hazards. This level was supposed to focus more on environmental awareness than on escaping other players and had moving obstacles intersect the paths of the moving platforms.

In the white level map, we wanted to replicate the feel of the black level map but change where the obstacles were in order to encourage players to be aware not just of where they needed to land when the worlds switched, but also where to avoid.

We wanted to think about the routes that players might take and where they would end up when the worlds switched.

Similar to the black level design annotations, we were intensely focused on guiding players’ escape paths through both worlds.