The Maze Part 2

For this next assignment, we were told to delve back into our original mazes and try to fix any glaring errors or bugs that may be present from the design of the level. It was also to help us practice how to finely tune any errors that we may have overlooked when designing the original map and it's concepts. As stated in my last post about this map, one of the bigger errors was the narrow passages that were present much more in my first iteration, making it very challenging to to get through some areas, with some even considering it unplayable. I ended up widening a majority of the pathways to help aid in movement and to not make the players mad at broken mechanics, which helped them enjoy the game much more. One of the main points that my playtesters made in this version of the map was that it was much more enjoyable just being able to move around much easier, and it felt a lot more open and not so claustrophobic to them.

My next main priority was the coin placement, and originally, my coin was placed in a way where it just felt weird to players (in the blue area), and they felt super confused about the whole thing, leading to some wondering how to even get the coin whereas others would consider it immersion and/or game-breaking. To combat this, I moved the end to the red area in the picture, and took the coin out of the fence. I also decided to make the fence a proper barrier, with the church graveyard now being an aesthetic instead of a playable area. This was a good decision as it helped my playtesters find a more clear path to the end, and having the end in sight of the players towards the beginning can help the players sense of how to get there, allowing the maze to be a bit easier.

The map went well with most of the playtesters, but there was still one flaw with my second map. I had placed a coin behind a small hour in the top left corner of the map in order to be a sort of "hidden coin", but the path to get to it, even though it was very small, was almost impossible to navigate through for most players, with some people getting stuck and not being able to even get out, making them have to either ask me for help or just having to start the map over again. I originally thought that this would be avoided since I was able to figure out how to move through narrow passages with ease, but that then made the level require prior skill and knowledge of how to move through narrow passages, which I didn't think about originally. I plan to fix this in my next iteration.

Overall, I think this is a much better upgrade to my original maze, with this maze being much more enjoyable and easy as opposed to my original version which was hard to move through and was very confusing. I think with a few more minor tweaks and the hidden coin removed, I feel this map could do a lot better.