Beat your best scores in Neon Beats, a new platformer game enriched by a rhythm-centric gameplay and Neon ambiance!
Warning : This project is still in development, the content below is not definitive and may change!
Neon Beats
- 2D Platformer game
- Neon-like art style
- An environment reacting to the musics
- 9 Levels including a Tutorial
- A score system
- Level Designer and Producer roles on the project
- Begininng of 2nd year school-project, turned into freetime project
- Made by 5 students in 2 months using Unity
Imposed constraints
- Must be Feels Good
- Non violent
- Color blind Friendly
- Playable with one hand
- Playable with at least 2 controllers
What aspects of the game are we the most proud about?
- Clean and pleasurable Art style
- Advanced Game Design
- Smooth and pleasant Character Controller
- Different musics for each level
- Nice and balanced Level Design
Game Trailer
Main Role in the project: Level Designer
Here we go! Let’s talk about Level Design.
While designing the levels of Neon Beats, I always tried to keep in mind 4 principles. These are the main principles on which I built the levels.
- The level design must follow the music.
- Progressive Learning
- Keep a logical interest curve
- Easy to learn, hard to master
1. The level design must follow the music. (Macro Design)
Because our main intention was to create a gameplay that follows and interacts with the music, I designed the levels in a way that when the music become higher and epic, the player is at this moment in a faster and stressful state. And vice versa, when the music goes lower, the player reverts in a slower state.
For example in level 02, we had a very epic moment where the music is ascending, follow-up by a drop, and then an intense part. So, I designed the whole part to have a really stressful moment during the ascending, a spectacular fall for the drop and a faster part with boosts after the drop.
The level must follow the music. (Micro Design)
In terms of micro design, I had to create rhythmic situations based on the beat of the music, using environmental elements that react to the beat itself.
In this example, all the metrics of the environment have been tweaked to allow the player to perform jumps one after the other on the platforms. It gives a feeling of success and satisfaction.
2. Progressive Learning
We designed the mechanics to be simple and understandable, but we still needed a progressive learning approach.
In order to keep the player in a good flow state, without him getting bored or frustated, I tried to introduce the environment mechanics step by step, with a crescendo challenge.
3. Keep a logical interest curve
During the process of design, we created the concept of “scene”. This is a kind of scene where the player has a multitude of challenges to overcome, one after the other, with their camera being dezoomed.
We find out that this kind of challenges in the scene provokes a peak of interest for the player, compared to more basic challenges.
That allowed me to structure the level with the aim of keeping a growing interest throughout the level.
4. Easy to learn, hard to master
We tried to create levels that are easily understandable and finishable by the players that are less confident in the platformer games but also with depth so that they could also be mastered by competitive players who want to excel and get the best score.
Level Design – Layouts
Future of Neon Beats?
We managed to release the game on Steam and Googleplay! The good evaluations and the enthusiasm of the players push us to continue the project, which we will soon do!
If you want, you can follow us on social networks to keep an eye on the project!