We wanted our game to be a fastpaced, platformer TPS and while we originally used Max Payne 3 as a reference, in terms of leveldesign the two games I mainly looked toward was "Daxter" and "Ratchet and Clank 3"

The strengths of those game is how seamlessly they seamlessly combine platforming challenges with fast paced arcade-y action. Our moveset were designed with this in mind. We had two weapons operating on overheating mechanics instead of ammunition, a dodgeroll to give the player another choice in combat, as well as a double jump to make platforming more manageable, through giving the player the ability to correct their jumps if needed.

I started the process of by settling on what the first level was supposed to feel like. The main setpiece I wanted was the hovering containerline. It offered a cool little movement setpiece and served the narrative beat of having the player "break into the facility." Other than that it was more about getting a general shape for the level down, and then blocking that out quickly. Combat arenas grew from simple shape ideas and were modified once we had enemies to playtest with, to ensure that the space encouraged the player to run around activly, and that they had enough room to throw their grenades and dodge effectively, and not be static.

Enemy encounters were designed entirely through iteration. "Planning" mostly consisted of deciding where we wanted to introduce a new enemy, and roughly how big we wanted a combat section to be. After that it was all about just spawning enemies in and continuously play test until we had an encounter that felt good and flowed well into the next one.