As part of the development process, a player can destroy an enemy by reaching the enemy and making contact with the enemy. The emphasis was placed on creating a maze style narrative where the player has to focus on using effective maze and platform navigation skills so that they are able to reach enemies under a time limit. We started developing this game with the foundational design having inspiration from  platformer games and maze games. Instead of just having platforms, we wanted to develop a mix of how the player would have to navigate a platform style game with maze structures. Usually, maze and platformer games are separate styles, but having them in the same game narrative was really interesting for us because it creates a unique game experience that tests a wider variety of skills from the user. The user has to use their platform jumping skills while also having to navigate around maze style platforms so that they have to use more creativity in reaching enemies through different maze barrier patterns to earn points for their medal score. Also, there are different amounts of points that need to be earned to get a gold medal, silver medal, or bronze medal. Throughout the levels, there are different maze structures and platforms placed so that the player has to jump at accurate angles and maneuver around larger barrier walls. The player can move by touch swiping on the player in any direction and can also have fall motion towards the ground when touch swiping from the player towards the ground. During the development process in week 1, Alok and Rachel decided on the initial levels design while Rachel decided on which  assets to use while Alok decided on defining the logic for the game's medal score narrative design and player interactions. The logic for the game was that every time the player makes contact with an enemy on platforms or the maze style platforms, then an amount of points is added to the player's score. If the player's level score is greater than or equal to the gold medal score points, the player gets a gold medal for that level. If the player's level score is at least equal to the points needed for a silver medal and less than a gold medal score, then the player gets a silver medal for that specific level. If the player's level score is at least equal to the points needed for a bronze medal and less than the points needed for a silver medal, then the player earns a bronze medal for that specific level. If the player's level score is  less than the points needed for a bronze medal, then the player earns no medal for that specific level. We got inspiration for this because we wanted this maze platformer game to follow patterns of competitive gaming where there are always rewards, like a gold, silver, or bronze medal, and feedback from scoring. During week 2, Alok and Rachel continued developing levels by adding in different platforms and maze style structures by changing the shape of different barriers and making different shapes out of multiple different platforms on each level and Rachel added background music. Alok and Rachel used assets on the level designs to add more styling to the easy and medium level. During week 3, Alok added responsive UI text feedback through the medal score system where every time a player reaches and makes contact with an enemy, the player's score in the UI text is updated and increased and Rachel continued adding sound effects when the player makes contact with enemies. Rachel also added more assets to the maze style platforms on the hard level and Alok developed game start and game end screens where the game can be restarted when a button is pressed and quit when the quit button is pressed. Rachel also added more styling to the finish flags and Alok added connectivity between levels so that whenever the player made contact with a finish flag at the end of each level, the player could explore the next level. Alok and Rachel also added connectivity between the hard level and the game end screen. Alok and Rachel also changed positioning, font, and font size of the player's score and medal score UI text to improve styling and Alok and Rachel adjusted player jump and fall speeds so that the player has enough speed to reach all enemies and jump across platforms and barriers. During week 4, Alok and Rachel finalized levels and the game's start and end screens. The levels were finalized by making sure that the player would be able to reach enemies within the time limit and making sure that all enemies were reachable because sometimes during testing, some of the platforms would not be able to reached by jumping and had to be repositioned and resized so that the player could jump and land onto those platforms. Alok and Rachel also changed Some of the barrier walls on the maze style platforms so that the player could effectively jump over barrier walls that had more height. Also, we did testing of how the game would look on the mobile screen and we had to adjust the font size and position of the UI text of the player's score, the gold medal score, silver medal score, and bronze medal score, by changing the editor's scale, resolution, and aspect ratio.  Also, Alok and Rachel changed the styling and positioning of the buttons and text on the game start and game end screens. The game developed to what it is now because of our initial inspiration about mixing the dynamics of a platformer game with maze style platforms. As more platforms were being placed to make this a platformer game, we decided to put the maze style platforms so that it gave more of a creative maze type setting to what was a platformer game. The game uses maze style platforms with regular individual horizontal platforms to give users the experience of a platformer game, but also encourages the player to use regular platforms as entry by jumping into creatively finding enemies on the larger and higher maze style platforms. 

The easy and medium levels were developed so that the player having to navigate through many platforms and maze style platforms while having to reach enemies that can be on different platforms and between different barriers. These levels includes a time limit, more enemies and more platforms so that the player is able to understand and adjust to the game’s setting while being able more easily navigate through the setting. The time limit counts down from the given number of seconds and the player has to reach and make contact with as many enemies on the level as possible so that the player tries to earn the most amount of points. Players will earn points each time they reach an enemy. These points will determine their score and the player will get a gold, silver, bronze, or no medal based on their earned amount of points. Different enemies were made to have different points given to the player when the player reaches and makes contact with different enemies. This point scoring is the same for all levels.  The easy level has fewer maze style platforms and more regular platforms so that the player adjusts to the game's time limit, navigation, and jumping movements to reach enemies on different platforms. Some of the platforms have shorter length so that the player has less landing area to reach some enemies. There is a maze style platform near the end of the easy level where they would have to navigate from different directions into the maze style platform to reach all possible enemies on the maze style platform. The medium level has more difficulty in how the player has to navigate more, use more accurate jumping, landing, and  falling skills to reach enemies on higher platforms or to reach enemies on smaller length platforms. The medium level has more maze style platforms than the easy level and has enemies placed in less expected locations because some maze style platforms may not have enemies and some other platforms or maze style platforms may have enemies. This keeps the game more exciting and keeps the player curious about where other enemies may be if they are not always in their expected locations. 

The hard level was developed so that the player having to navigate through fewer maze style platforms while having to reach enemies to earn points and try for a medal score. This hard level includes a time limit, less enemies, barriers, and more difficult maze style design platforms than the medium level so that the player has to use even better navigation and jumping skills throughout the platforms and so that the player finds it even more difficult to reach different enemies. The platforms will be harder to reach because of the time limit and how the player has to navigate through platforms that have larger spacing in between. From the time limit, the player has to find better jumping angles and quicker fall speed so that the player is ready to jump onto other platforms quickly and onto other maze style platforms. There are fewer enemies on this level, but they are harder to reach because they are placed at higher heights, in between larger barriers on the maze style platforms, and on some smaller length platforms. Some enemies are placed on smaller length platforms because then it is harder for the player to have an easy landing area after jumping to try and reach enemies on those smaller platforms. Some enemies are placed on or around the maze style platforms or on the barriers of maze style platforms so that the player has to be more accurate in how they jump and land onto enemies to earn points for their medal score. Also this hard level has a different combination of fewer regular platforms and maze style platforms where the player has to use the regular platforms to reach the higher maze style platforms. If they are not able to land on the smaller length regular platforms, this will affect how many enemies they reach because there the maze style platforms are much placed much higher than some of the regular platforms. There will also be more larger and taller barriers placed on or around the platforms so that it is harder for the player to jump into the maze style platforms and reach enemies. Players will still have their points that determine their score and will get a gold, silver, bronze, or no medal based on the amount of enemies they reach and make contact with. 

The game start screen allows the player to enter the game by loading the easy level when a button is pressed and the game's end screen was developed so that the restart button loads the easy level when pressed and the quit button loads the game start screen when pressed 

During playtesting, there were recommendations made to change the UI of the game that shows the current score of the player that updates based on how many enemies they have destroyed and how many points are needed to get a gold, silver, or bronze medal for each level. The UI was not showing up clearly initially, but after changing the aspect ratio, scaling settings, and reference resolution, it was much more efficient to change the UI so that it shows well on the phone screen. The font size and position was changed to better show the score and medals score UI. Also, during playtesting, the player navigated well throughout the levels and the the point scoring system of the player gaining points by destroying enemies had accurate behavior. After users had initially played the game, they wanted more styling on the platforms and more enemy movement. So enemy movements and styling was added. The sound feedback after destroying enemies and background music was also changed because it initially did not mesh well together and its volume could have been higher. The sounds and background music audio was changed and eventually worked well. During certain levels, the score for how many points the player earned would not update as expected or was increasing more than expected after finishing a previous level, so this was changed to reset the score on each level. Also, when the player earned a medal score, the game behavior for loading the next level automatically was working well. 

Weekly Playtesting and Development Notes

Playtesting and Development Notes for Week 1:

• The game had less complexity and no clear narrative or objective 
• Need to add more responsive UI score feedback so that player has feedback after making progress on level
• Need to add more player interactions like jumps and fall downs
• Need to add more styling to the initial level design 
• Develop initial easy level with regular platforms and test initial level so that player's jump and fall speeds make it possible to reach all enemies within a time limit
• Need to add connectivity between levels
• Need to show a scoring system to user so that user understands what amount of points are needed for medal score
• Develop functionality for having a time limit that counts down for initial level
• Develop initial maze style platform designs for medium level

Playtesting and Development Notes for Week 2:

• Add background music
• Work on game end and start screens to have restart game feature and quit game feature
• Develop logic and functionality for adding points to player's score when player makes contact with an enemy
• Add more enemies on medium level 
• Develop game timer limit functionality to automatically load the next level after current level game timer limit finishes. 
• Need to change height of specific barrier walls on maze style platforms because barriers too high to jump over
• Need to change length of maze style platforms so that it fits more enemies that can be in maze style platform
• Need to add more styling to medium level
• Need to reset the player's score on each level so that the player's current level score does not include points from a previously finished level
• Need to have player's score and medal score UI follow player as player moves through levels
• Develop logic and functionality to show medal score when game timer limit finishes on easy and medium levels
• Change some positioning of enemies on hard level to increase difficulty of enemies being reached by player
• Change length of some platforms to be smaller on medium level to increase difficulty and so player has less landing area on platforms
• Add more enemy movements so that player has to move and navigate more to reach enemies 

Playtesting and Development Notes for Week 3:

• Continue developing restart and quit game feature on game's end screen
• Develop styling for player's score and medal score UI text through fonts, font size, and position
• Add more maze style platforms to have more barriers and add more enemies into the maze style platforms
• Need to add more connectivity between medium level and hard level
• Need to add more connectivity between hard level and game end screen
• Decrease length of some platforms on hard level to increase player landing difficulty 
• Need to add more styling to hard level
• Need to add more maze style platforms to hard level so that it is harder for player to reach enemies between barrier walls
• Need to change height of barrier walls on hard level because player cannot jump over specific higher height barrier walls
• Change spacing between regular platforms and maze style platforms so that player has to use regular individual platforms to jump into maze style platforms
• Develop logic and functionality to show game end screen after player finishes hard level and game timer on hard level finishes
• Add finish flags on each level so that player can move to the next level and finalize easy, medium, and hard maze level designs
• Test easy, medium, and hard levels on mobile screen so that there is good visibility of platforms and enemies

Playtesting and Development Notes for Week 4:

• Add more enemies and maze style platforms
• Change positioning and style of buttons and text on game start and end screens
• Add sound effects when player reaches and makes contact with enemy 
• Adjust medal score UI's font size and position for good visibility on mobile screen scale and resolution 
• Adjust platforms, barrier walls and enemies to add difficulty so it is harder for player to reach enemies on higher platforms and higher maze style platforms