Space Bar game (minimal viable product) is designed by a group of students in the Centre for Digital Media in 2018. This article talks about the level design.
The game is comprised of four levels, each one containing a different task. The planets begins with an easy environment and progressively gets harder. As the character progresses through the levels, the black hole’s gravitational pull gets stronger. Each planet has its own unique collectible artifact, which is hinted at by an ominous female voice. Each level is designed so that the player has to become increasingly aware of their surroundings to survive.
Level 1: Planet Moon
The player is immediately introduced to the narrative of the game through a short video and is then placed into the gameplay. Planet Moon acts as a tutorial, where the controls, abilities, hazards, powerups and collectibles are all introduced. Every time the character interacts with something new a pop-up text screen appears to detail the purpose of that specific object.
The player is first introduced to the loss of gravity feature, as the character slowly floats away until a pop-up text screen appears notifying the user why this is occurring. The danger meter in the top left corner illuminates and a quick pop-up text screen appears, and informs the player that every time the meter is full, the character dies.
From there, the introduction of obstacles that can be reached appears via text screen and changes in colour when the cursor moves over a rock for instance. A description of the hazards appears as the player interacts with the dangerous environment. In this specific level they are craters which will increase your danger gauge. Power Ups, switches and collectibles will be displayed next and the player will then have free reign to collect the five collectible cheese icons needed to move on to the next world.
Level 2: Planet Lava
After the character lands on the second planet, the game starts to get a more challenging: First, there are more hazards including lava areas where the actual planet is splitting apart. Barrels are introduced in this level and act as another obstacle to further distance the character from the goal of achieving the five collectibles. Power Ups are now harder to obtain, as they are now placed in more dangerous areas. As the character progresses from planet to planet, the gravitational pull from the black hole increases. Therefore, on this planet, the user may find themselves floating away faster than the planet moon.
Level 3: Planet Water
As with the last planet, the gravitational pull increases as the character is once again slightly closer to the epicenter of the black hole. This time the user is essentially on a ‘waterworld’ where they have to collect five pieces of a trident to move on to the next level. In terms of hazards, the rate of barrels increases making it more challenging to grapple towards the collectible items. The user will encounter water typhoons on the planet that will push the player further away and into the atmosphere. Switches and Power Ups are even more difficult to obtain and require strategic grappling to get to.
Level 4: Planet Dark
The final planet will act as the climax of the game where the player is now at the epicenter of the black hole. The black hole is in the middle of these four planets, and planet dark is the last one to be consumed. On this level, the user will collect five containers of rocket fuel to complete the level. In terms of hazards, the user will encounter barrels and dangers associated with the continuous combustion of planet dark that includes lava spouts, typhoons, hurricanes and every natural disaster you could think of. This level is designed to be extremely challenging and will take the average player numerous times to complete. On top of that, the planet will be very dimly lit due to the shadow of the black hole and the extreme gravitational force that will send the user into the atmosphere in a matter of minutes. Once the user collects all five containers of rocket fuel, they will move to the beam of light, which will send them to the end of the game.
Space Bar Game play demo
© Wenyi Gong & Space Bar Team 2019