Howdy, guys, and gals. Hope y'all are having a great day. Here's me with another update on the development of this game.

This tree level is taking much longer than anticipated, but it takes shape pretty nicely. I'm a little unsatisfied at the moment on how things are shaping up to be for the latter half of this level. Let me show you.

So what I am trying to do at this articular moment in time is mix everything that has been thrown around in this level. At first, the player is presented with a few mechanics: wall run, some grappling hooks and some platforming. In the second stage I've added the jump pad, the monkey bar and the ledge climb. In the third part of the level, I tried "going out of the box" so to speak, by introducing the player with mostly familiar mechanics in a different setting, with one key addition, the crushers.

In this last section, the player is going to experience all of the above combined: You go in and out of the tree trunk and all previously presented mechanics will be encountered in this level. I haven't gotten that far down this particular road, but what I have keeps momentum.

Speaking of which, After I've expertly played through the level, I've noticed that the first outside area breaks momentum in a noticeable manner.

It's kind of difficult to explain with words, so bear with me.

What I mean by this is that up until now, the player was presented with various mechanics, only to have a halt to them. Maybe it's a placement mistake, maybe I paced the level wrong at one very specific point (don't know which one), but throughout the first half, there's an anticipation for something more difficult that the player experiences or the player reaches and maintains momentum, only to have it lost when reaching the latter half of the level. It feels "out of left field" but in a good way. BUT after this specific point, the experience dips a bit because of lack of challenge.

When the player reaches the area that I've shown you in this post above, at the moment it feels not as challenging or exciting or at the very least defies an expectation. In a bad way. So I'll keep a mental note of this and work on it tomorrow.

Other than that, not much to add. So that's it for today, I'll see you guys and gals in the next post. Bye!