Here’s some of my most recent screenshots from the level test in Game Maker:



I’ve taken on some of the advice I’ve received from feedback sessions, such as using the blue brick tiles as a background layer to show depth within the mountain, however I’m still concerned about the scenery looking overcrowded, messy and repetitive. This is before I’ve even filled the level with many of the items/objects which will be added later. So I’ve gone back to my traced level design and doodled this new tile design, based on a much simpler and organised idea.

There are parts of my original design which clearly show just a few neatly aligned rocks jutting out, and I feel this suits the building graphics better than the more clustered tiles I was previously using. I created this test mock-up in Photoshop to check their effectiveness:

You can see that I’ve also changed the colour of the grass to match some of the colours used in the building, so the level shouldn’t seem so disjointed any more. I’m currently working on the rocks around the cave entrances, and wondering if I should create a non-tiled pattern specifically for all of these instances, although all of this still needs a little work.