The Prison Break

For our next assignment, we were tasked with making another simple DnD map, but this time, we had to follow a certain theme. Our theme was a prison break, and we had to set this in some sort of post-apocalyptic, alien invasion type of scenario, which I absolutely loved. I decided to have my aliens within my map be a robotic species that is super intelligent and way more technological than the human species, but I also wanted it to be quite a gritty, worn down setting (you know, since it was post-apocalyptic).

 My map first started out within the cells in the worn out, dungeon-like room, with one character spawning in the middle "torture room". The playtesters that played my map thought this was a cool concept as it kind of had a "last man standing" feel and it added tension to the gameplay right at the start, making for compelling gameplay if they got into a fight. That player would then have to unlock the other character's cells using a key that they find on a guard that they beat down (or possibly even one just lying around). I also incorporated darkness to this first room as it gave the starting players more tension and it made the really want to get through it. 
I also incorporated a "camera system" that could alert more enemies to their location if they are within it's proximity for a certain length of time or if they fail to destroy it (it's basically a mini battle). The people that playtested thought that this was a good idea, but they felt there might've been too many cameras, leading to the map being a bit too hard and with the small supply of items found on the map, it was hard to counteract a bunch of attacks. They feel that if I took away some cameras and worked on their stats a bit that it would be a much more enjoyable mechanic. Along with cameras, there are also alarms that can be disabled and there are also rooms on both floors that allow the players to disable the cameras on that floor, making it much easier for them to maneuver through the map. They also felt that my checkpoints were well placed and that they didn't need to be moved.

One huge thing that they felt definitely needed to be addressed was the time it took to play through the map. With a 20 minute time limit, it's very hard to make a map that can be both enjoyable and challenging at the same time. However, my map probably took at least over 30 minutes to complete because I had different enemy types, a mini boss, and a main boss at the very end, making the map a very combat-oriented map, which the playtesters thought was a good way to go after my last map involved too much walking. This time, however, I had to ditch making a complex story and choices like my last map because this map had more parts to it than my last one, and my playtesters were sad to see that dropped. They felt it was one of the key components to my last map and they think that this map could be much more enjoyable and intriguing with a backstory to go along with their travels. Also, they felt that some of my enemies were a bit too hard, especially for the first room. With the mechanic of "one guy saves the others", they felt that the enemies inside the dungeon needed a rework so that they were easier to defeat for that initial player.

They also recommended that I make the items that could be acquired within the map more prominent. Most of the items that were in the map weren't found, and they felt that there was quite a lack of items, making it very hard for them to get all the way through the map in one piece. On top of that, they also felt like it needed a tad bit more structure since both them and I were confused when there was an enemy and when there was not, as well as whether or not an enemy spotted them and/or attacked them.

Overall, they felt that this map had a lot of potential. They loved the design of the map much more than my last map since my last map was solely just one path. They liked having the choice of going down different paths to reach the exit, but with the camera system being so OP and the enemies being pretty hefty, they felt like it was too hard to really choose their own path. Hopefully my second iteration of this map can be much better than the first.