Design Process
We used Excel to organize the design of the 40 levels. On this table, we can see that each row is significant.
In green: All LD bricks we used for the level design.
The player unlocks the Dash at level 5 and the bomb at level 21.
In blue: Intentions for each level.
This second table shows the total number of uses for each LD brick. The goal was to have a relatively balanced number for all LD bricks.
After configuring the level's intention, we determined the overall difficulty of the level. The goal is to alternate between Easy/Mid/Hard so that the overall flow of the game is smooth.
The length of the levels is directly linked to the difficulty. Generally, we aimed to make challenging levels shorter than the others, but we can combine length and challenging situations, as seen in levels 10/20/30/40 which are boss levels.
We also hide some collectibles in the levels. These collectibles are tapes which unlock new music. It's mainly cosmetic, but I think it's a nice and subtle way to increase the game's lifespan.