Guiding the player - We wanted our world to have the open feel of A Link to the Past. We also had a requirement of not exceeding 30 minutes of play time. This meant that we had to guide the player in the right direction and try to limit the playable area while still trying to keep the open feeling. We did this by allowing the player to go in any direction from the hub but placing hard locks around the world that could not be passed before going in the right direction and getting the required ability. We also made the main paths a bit wider than the side paths and placed NPC:s around the world giving the player clues to where to go.

Kill your darlings - Making an adventure game in just 8 weeks half time is a big undertaking. A few weeks into the project we realised that we were behind schedule and had not even started on a lot of the features. Therefore, we decided to cut an entire area and its associated features.

Cutting content is something that I’ve had to do in every group project I’ve worked on. In the beginning, it felt really bad to throw away something I’ve put my time and effort into. Now I have no problem at all doing so if I know that it will improve the final product.