Testers got lost on some levels
As I gained confidence as a level designer (that is, learning to rely more on tester feedback rather than vibes). I began to dip my feet in environmental design to put lots of cool landmarks in my levels, both to guide those lost testers and make cool arenas for enemy ambushes and bossfights. I mostly used assets bought from the Epic Store, but our artists designed and modeled some amazing stuff by my request as well.
ESTATUAS, TORRE, CALDERO
In that process, I also realized the importance of lighting as a tool to highlight points of interest. Guillermo (a great lighting artist!) and I communicated more and more as developmente progressed.
We needed more enemy variety (without crunching our incredibly talented, albeit small, art team)
I designed an array of magical orb enemies that shoot all kinds of projectiles (lasers, guided magic missiles, bullet hell patterns, etc). Despite sharing a simple spherical shape, any one of them can easily be distinguished by its color and the uniquely pretty vfx's it spews out.
The game initially lacked a clear hook/direction
Candle Knight was originally intended to be a metroidvania. After analysing results from playtesting one year into production, Hector (world's best producer) and I began to think that the game could have a better future as a more lienar and manageable action platformer.
To propose that change to the rest of the team, I redesigned all levels from scrap and created the "Ignys" dynamic difficulty system -described above in the Design Pillars section- to have a "stand out" core mechanic that suited our main character.
The combat started to "feel sluggish"
As the level design turned focus to suit a more linear and fast paced action platformer (like Megaman Zero or Cave Story), playtesters reported that CK's attacks felt too heavy and slow in relation to his movement.
In response, I immediatly started speeding up tons of animations in-engine to test out different rhythms for the combat. The animator was scared at first, but we soon began to work more closely to achieve greater results.
I also tinkered endlessly with the positioning of vfx's and hitboxes to make attacks more readable.
Unexpected scope creep at the end
Once we commited to self-publishing, we had to come to terms with the fact that a lot of the content we had planned sadly wouldn't make it to release. As creative director I did my best to repurpose some the beautiful work our team had been made for the levels that were cut, placing it in other parts of the game.
For example, I placed the model of the cut final boss boss with it's idle animation in the background of the present final battle.
Wore far too many hats, to the game's detriment (and mine)
I also contributed some music and audio work, and as I got promoted to a direction role and the team size increased, I found myself stretched thin.
To solve that, the producer encouraged me to mentor Andrea (a talented game desig intern) to redistribute what remained of that work in the last year of production. She ended up contributing some of the game's best content and continues to be a succesful and accomplished developer by her own right.
NOTE: I was promoted to Creative Director mid-development while remaining in charge of systems and levels.
