I've continued work on the second cave level and I have to say, I'm liking where this is going. Like I've mentioned before, the intent was to make some sort of a looping on itself level and it was a success.

The Mobius strip like loop works OK as is. Here is a picture of how it looks from a gameplay perspecive. Assets are highlighted strictly for better visibility of the space (it's a dark area).

The green arrows indicate the direction that the player can take. The red arrow with an X indicates that the player will hit a dead end and cannot progress, therefore no go.

Notice that you can only get on the bridge if you complete the left-side part of the level first.

The large opening in the middle of the room will become accessible once the player completes both the left hand side of the level and the right hand side. There is going to be a puzzle of some sort, this part I have not figured out yet.

There is still work to do: I have to cap the open gaps with walls and test the level to see how it feels like it is.

I have to toy around with the large straight strip of rooms that follows the mobius strip section. The intention with this section is to be in complete antithesis with what the first section of the level is. Whereas the mobius strip section is full of ups and downs, left and right, this straight section would be one (almost) continuous line of hazards. I had to break up the continuous line strictly for the player to have a sense of surprise when entering the next room.

This entire section would have tons of hazards for the player to deal with. What hazards, I don't fully know yet.

Also, I'll toy around with the sizes of the 4 big rooms in the straight strip. There may yet be some value in diversifying the size, to allow for more complex gameplay. But this also remains to be seen when I will reach the documentation phase.

I didn't notice when I made this level, but from a top-down perspective, the entire level looks like a key. Very neat and totally not intended. Maybe I'll do something cool with this info. Maybe have a treasure hunt here, or a collectible. Look:

The plan for this level is for it to be the first cave level the player encounters, right after the player climbs up the dam. This will look something like this:

The green arrow represents the entrance to the cave and the purple arrow represents the exit. At the exit, there will be something that the player can see from the position shown in the screenshot. Something like a big landline with a light on top of it.

It may not be visible, but the cave is on the left side of the dam. On the right side, I do have in plan to implement an exploration area with some sort of a tourist attraction thing going on, with a big statue and a tower of some sort. It's still vague in gameplay and in a layout, the exploration area, but the visuals and elements to be placed are pretty much set in stone.

On the other side of the dam there will be a lake. Surrounding the lake will be peaks and valleys and forest with the peak of the mountain visible in the distance.

Well, that's all I've got for today. See ya in the next post. Bye.