My name is Eduardo Lemus, and I am the level designer of the video game "Toyland Tales." In this development diary I would like to talk about two things, which are the path that the player must follow to complete the level and the changes and additions that were made to the puzzles with respect to their original versions.

# Path

Originally, the idea we had for the game was to be able to explore the daycare at will, without the player having a restriction or order where to go, but after several modifications to our plans and to have a more controlled experience, it was decided to create a linear experience with a path which you must follow in order to advance in the level and that will take you to each of the challenges posed in the level.

The path is mainly made of things that one would find in a daycare, such as toy blocks, books, crayons, Legos, among many other things. In this there is no type of deviation or secondary path, since as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the team opted for a completely linear experience so that the player cannot get lost and is able to face each of the challenges of the level, as well as having a more controlled experience to avoid any type of inconvenience such as the possibility of leaving the limits of the map.

A new feature that was also added to the game within this path is some green puddles which are found near the enemies. These are intended to slow down the player when he is inside them, so that the player cannot escape so easily from the enemies if he wants to do so.

# Puzzle Changes

For the level's puzzles/challenges you may want to make certain modifications or add certain features to make them a little more challenging. The first example would be the challenge of the colored tiles, where when stepping on one that is not the same, it will fall along with the player, returning them to the beginning of the challenge. For this puzzle, the feature was added that the player's movement was reduced once he stepped on one of the tiles, because before he could avoid falling by simply continuing to walk due to the player's great speed, making the challenge lose everything. the sense. To avoid having to reduce the player's overall speed, I decided that there will only be a speed reduction in this area, so the player will not have time to move to another tile and avoid falling. A small flag was also added at the beginning of the challenge explaining what the puzzle is about.

One puzzle that was modified from its original idea is the toy piano. Originally, the player had to deduce the letter combination by trying it several times, but after a while I began to feel some frustration trying to guess the correct order, making it a puzzle that was more frustrating than challenging. In order to avoid this, I decided to add two things: the first was to put blocks with bright colors on the wall of blocks in front of the piano, which when put together and arranged form the word that the player must put on the piano to be able to advance to the next zone, and the second was to place a note with a phrase which made it clear that attention should be paid to those blocks that differ from the rest.

An area that completely changed the challenge that it would present is the block castle, since it would originally have a boss inside which the player would have to defeat in order to get one of the pieces necessary to complete the level, but after several tests and comments from people outside the project, I decided to eliminate the boss battle and change it to a platform area. In the middle of the block castle area, there is a block tower in which at the top there is a toy from which one of its parts must be taken. In order to reach it, the player must do parkour using the objects around the castle, such as blocks, crayons, wooden boards, among other things, in order to reach the top of it and claim his reward.