Submerged Space

Submerged Space is a Celeste Modded level I made at the end of 2023. I wanted to create a level that the player would be able to play directly after finishing the final level of Celeste, titled Farewell. I also wanted to focus on the gameplay as much as possible, putting thought into each and every move the player would made, the layout of each room, the progression of each mechanic, and different ways to teach the player without actually telling them anything.

Pre-Production

Below is a link to my Pre-Production document. Though certain elements differ from the end result, I documented what Gametype, Visuals, Gameplay Mechanics, Pacing, Audio, Effects, and Objectives the level would contain.

Pre-Production

Production

Milestone 1

This is the first milestone of Submerged Space. During this week, I experimented with the level editor, figuring out what mechanics I wanted to be in the map, and explained what movement techniques I wanted the player to exercise the most.

Milestone 2

This milestone is the first look into my game design mentality. I explained every move I wanted the player to make, every design decision and what they meant, and how I created unique room designs to make sure the gameplay never got stale. I also explained decoration decisions, and edited this video to be more comprehensive.

Milestone 3

In this week I created three new rooms, worked on better camera, introduced new mechanics, and begun set design. I also modified previous rooms for better set ups and better gameplay.

Milestone 4

This is the second week I put effort into explaining my game design mentality while I was creating Submerged Space. I explained changes I made, meaningful gameplay decisions I implemented, and new set design features I added. This is also the first time the level was fully completable from beginning to end.

Milestone 5

Since the gameplay was essentially finished, I continued to set design the rest of the entire level, as well as working on better camera controls for each room. Most of the set design is completed this milestone, excluding a few rooms.

Final Milestone

Entire playthrough of the level, uninterrupted.

Post Mortem

What Went Right

The first thing that went right was my gameplay thinking process. During my N++ level making, I figured out how to effectively make varying levels by using different shapes, gameplay mechanics, and decoration. For this level, however, I focused more specifically on the gameplay, and how it subliminally teaches the player how to do things one step at a time. I made sure that each room had a purpose, and that deleting any room would make it feel like a part of the level was missing. I think I pulled off every room pretty well, since I planned the mechanics I wanted to introduce and reinforce throughout the room before actually making it. I'm happy with how the gameplay turned out.

Another thing that went right was how quickly I learned how to do things. Upon making the tutorial for how to work in Lonn, I realized that I had achieved a mastery of a lot of the aspects of the level editor. Enough so that I was able to confidently talk about things like file structuring, importing and editing stylegrounds, and using text files to rename aspects of the level. All of these things were things I thought would take me a lot longer to pick up on, but it worked out way better than I thought it would.

A final thing that went right was my time management. I was confidently able to complete everything I wanted to within each time limit, and still have room to make edited milestone videos that followed rough scripts. Though I would have loved for the level to be a bit longer and include more strawberries, I did everything that was required of me to complete each milestone each week in time.

What Went Wrong

Burnout. Though the first four weeks of making the level were a blast, there was a certain point where I just started to feel exhaustion. Call it spending 4 hours on multiple statistics assignments a week, or call it putting more hours than necessary into making this level, but I got super exhausted, was not getting enough sleep, and didn't have much drive to do anything. This is something I need to work on, and I think it could be fixed with a healthier daily routine and sleep schedule, but I'll have to take care of that moving forward.

Another thing that went wrong was that I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do. I wanted to add background tiles for all levels, as well as decorating the level with decals, but it's something I'm going to be doing after this class is over regardless of whether or not it goes for a grade. I want this to be a portfolio piece I can show off to employers.

A final thing that went wrong was that I never ended up doing as much playtesting as I wanted to do. Though I spend thousands of attempts in playtesting for my levels, which translated over to GD and N++ as well, I definitely could have used outside input. The problem is that it was recommended to me by a friend that I set up camera before actually doing playtesting, which is something I didn't do until the last week. I'll be getting playtesting more in the future whenever I end up continuing the project.

Things I Learned

The first thing I learned is that getting proper rest is important. 5-6 hours of sleep is not enough, and it's a surefire way to get burnout early on. Getting outside more, getting better sleep, and eating better could have resulted in me being less exhausted all the time. Like I said before, this is something I need to work on moving forward.

A second thing I learned is that not all teaching is done with signs. Teaching can be done through repetition, visual cues, tutorials, and a multitude of other things. When I was creating the gameplay for my levels, I ended up using a bunch of different ways to teach and reinforce new tech, which blended in with the level enough so that the player wouldn't necessarily notice it. I pulled it off pretty well, and I'll be taking that knowledge and practice forward as I make more levels.

A final thing I learned is that weird ideas can lead to great creations. There are so many ways that game mechanics can be used in any game, and Celeste is no exception. If you ever play through the base game, you'll notice that Farewell, despite being at the end of the game, uses all of the mechanics from the base game in completely new ways that blow your mind. It's seriously so cool, and it's something I want to keep in mind when creating levels in the future, because it can be really impressive.

Tutorial

Lonn and Project Organization

Most of my knowledge with the level editor was taught to me through calls with another person of the community, so I made a general tutorial of the modded level editor known as "Lonn". Seeing as project organization is very important when working with this editor, I went over that as well.