Hello everyone!

Today's devlog is all about Blue Flame's first level, the Last Battlefield. Before we delve into the level design, let me first show you the old level and the new one as a whole.

Old level:

And the new one:

Now, apart from the obvious background color - which is just there as a placeholder - the main characteristics of the map remains the same. You start at the left and your goal is to get to the right, defeat the boss and move on. But, the two level differ in the nuances in how they deliver this experience.

Here's the "pathmap" (we'll use this term as possible routes for the player from now on) of the old map:

Here:

• the green line shows the path to the boss
• the brown branch is a path to a powerup
• the dark red is a path to an NPC
• the red is a path to a bonfire
• the blue stars are bonfires (checkpoints)
• the yellow hexagons are points of interests

And here's the pathmap for the new level:

The lines show the same things, but the yellow line is an alternate path around a trap set in the middle of the map and one is an alternate route from a point of interest.

What's really interesting is that there's a bonfire right next to the boss room, but to get there you have to take the lower path where a trap awaits you. The whole flow of the maps is different, because in the old version while you did had branching paths and things to explore, you pretty much always ended up going back where you came from, because you had no other routes.

Now, you can choose where you'd like to go and every path takes you towards your goal, save for one that takes you to an underground cave that you can explore and save an NPC.

This gives the whole map a more dynamic feel and gives a sense on continuous progression before the game branches off at the hub area a few levels farther east, but I'm curious, what's your opinion about it?

Steve