How do you build a game level in a sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, or – in our case – candy style?
You ignore the style completely, at least at first. Before any of that, the level has to work as a level. Does it need obstacles and cover? Should the character die and restart if they fall off the path? Are they hiding from enemies, dodging turret fire? Sort that out before anything else. The mechanics come first.
For us that meant deciding what the obstacles are, how they behave, and how the character gets through the course. A few examples:
So now do we start modeling sweets? Nope. First we block out the level, and we’re still not thinking about style or environment.
The obstacles get built from primitives — cubes, spheres, whatever basic shape fits. Proportions matter a lot here. If the gap is too wide the character can’t clear the jump, so you’re checking sizes constantly against what they can actually do.
We color-code everything so the blockout stays readable. Green is anything that moves. Red is anything that can hurt the player — things that explode, knock you back, or shoot. Blue is static.
Once the prototype plays right with just primitives, we start swapping in real objects.
Flat shapes became chocolate bars. Cones became upside-down ice cream cones, cylinders became candy, and the long skinny ones turned into candles and straws.
Most of the work is done by then. The rest is decoration: donuts the level runs through, coins and pickups to grab, drones to point the player the right way. The finish line gets a big trophy, obviously.
Then we wrapped the level in an environment made of the same sweets. One thing to watch — you need contrast between the path and the background. If they blend together, players can’t tell where they’re meant to go.
And that’s how a pile of cubes turned into the Platformer Chocolate pack. It’s not quick, and the only way I know to get better at it is to keep doing it and actually look at what came out wrong last time.
