When planning out the level, we want to make sure that the player experiences a sense of progression. That is to say, the challenges they face should start out simple to ease them into the game and then become progressively more difficult. There should be some fluctuation, of course - without moments of low tension as well as high tension, the pacing won’t be satisfying. But overall, the player should start off dealing with relatively simple problems and steadily progress to tougher ones.

In addition, the game should present new elements, abilities, and obstacles to the player one at a time so they have sufficient opportunity to learn each one in isolation before having to handle all of them at once. And even when they are handling multiple things at the same time, dealing with a pair of familiar concepts should come before having to manage a group of three or more simultaneously. Even though the player doesn’t unlock any new abilities in the traditional sense in this game, this principle is still important in establishing an effective learning curve for the player without having to resort to cumbersome tutorials.

To map this all out when designing the room layout of the level, we’ll need to assign each room one of several color-coded categories, which will appear in roughly this order:

1. Basic Jumping: Rooms with no enemies that require simple jumps in order to proceed, but otherwise have no challenge. These are just to make sure the player is comfortable with jumping, or possibly as a breather towards the latter half of the level.

2. Basic Archer: Rooms with one or two Skeleton Archers, and not in a place where more than one can hit the player at a time. These get the player used to how enemies and enemy projectiles work without making them very difficult to avoid.

3. Charger: Rooms with a Skeleton Charger or two, but not right next to each other. These familiarize the player with this enemy’s aggression while there’s only one to deal with.

4. Advanced Jumping: Rooms with no enemies, but tricky platforming. These prepare the player for having to make difficult jumps before having to do so with enemies present.

5. Archer/Charger Combo: Rooms with both Skeleton Archers and Chargers. These introduce the player to dealing with multiple types of enemies at once, especially Archers placed behind other units.

6. Floating Skulls: Rooms with Floating Skulls, but no other enemies. Should be large and contain some tricky jumps. These prepare the player for avoiding enemy patterns while platforming.

7. Advanced Archer: Rooms with several Skeleton Archers, ideally positioned to catch the player off guard and keep them constantly dodging arrows. These prepare the player for dealing with large amounts of attacks at once.

8. Solo Knight: Rooms with Skeleton Knight. These teach the player how to defeat Knights in isolation.

9. Boneyard: Rooms with multiple Skeleton Archers, Skeleton Chargers, and Floating Skulls. These challenge the player to deal with large quantities of mixed enemies.

10. Knight Formation: Rooms with a Skeleton Knight backed up by Skeleton Archers. These prepare the player for fighting off a single tough opponent while also dodging unavoidable enemy fire, or perhaps skipping ahead to take out the Archers first.

11. Gauntlet: Rooms with multiple Skeleton Archers, Skeleton Chargers, Skeleton Knights, and Floating Skulls. These challenge the player to incorporate everything they’ve learned so far. There should probably only be one of these, right before the

12. Boss: Room containing Osmeus, Dastardly Lich. The player’s final challenge.

In addition to these learning curve rooms, there are two other types of rooms (also color-coded) which server other functions:

• Powerup: Rooms containing an Elixir of Fortitude, which increases max HP. These should generally be hidden, hard to reach, or otherwise off the beaten path, in order to reward the player’s curiosity and exploration.

• Save Point: Rooms that let the player heal, record their progress, and take a break from being attacked. We’ll talk more about them later.

These give us a rough idea not only of what the challenges in the level will consist of, but in what order the player will have to confront them. With these building blocks in place, we can start mapping out our critical path using each of these categories. Once that’s done we can then add branching sidepaths which contain hidden powerups.