Make a Good Mega Man Level: Episode Zero
Level Designer (Twilight Terrace)
(May 2019 - June 2020)
Download link: https://magmmlcontest.com/episodeZero.php
Programming responsibilities: Gameplay programming, technical design, enemy behavior implementation
Team Size: 20+ main team members, 50+ contributors
Misc. responsibilities: Pixel art, level design, quality assurance and playtesting
MaGMML: Episode Zero is a spin-off interquel to the Make a Good Mega Man Level series, giving the player an opportunity to play as the mythical Zero! Blast, slash, and dash your way through stages, collect Energy Elements, and investigate the mysterious group SRARA! Unlike the other MaGMML titles, each level was quality tested and fine-tuned for a consistent, streamlined, and engaging action-platformer experience.
Development history and retrospective
The Mega Man fangame community was one of many fandoms I interacted with over the Internet which encouraged me to experiment with programming and level design, and after joining the MaGMML Discord upon the completion of its second entry, I was around for the announcement that a new side-game was in development. MaGMML: Episode Zero was going to be a game in which you got to play as the titular Zero, including new mechanics, a new story, and, most importantly, new stages made with user-created submissions. It would differ from the classic MaGMML formula as none of the stages would be judged, and instead would be tested for quality control. Being able to contribute to a large project like this as a budding Mega Man fan sounded incredibly fun, and with the few months I had been familiarizing myself with the Megamix Engine, I joined the growing group of participants.
Working on Episode Zero was a worthwhile learning experience for me, if not a rocky one. A major part of working on my level submission was learning how to properly communicate with others to clarify rules and guidelines and to critique progress on each others’ work; for a lack of better words, I made significantly more questionable level design and enemy behavior choices than I do now. I’m still always learning in both of those regards, but working on Episode Zero was one of the many experiences which encouraged more extensive prototyping, user testing, and self-awareness.
My submission to the game went through many different iterations, both in concept and in execution. It originally started as a Geometry Dash crossover level, taking place during the first half of the “Stereo Madness” level followed by a more original section involving gravity flipping portals and pads. This was quickly shut down for being too derivative, so that part (alongside the long-forgotten “Geometry Man”) was scrapped. Pivoting to a different idea and aesthetic using my recent foray into Super Mario Maker 2, I recreated the Swinging Claws from that game as a potential gimmick, and although its execution was less than ideal, using Swinging Claws alongside Hornet Man’s stage aesthetic paved the way for the final iteration of my submission.
Twilight Terrace is the final version of my work that made it into Episode Zero. It doesn’t include everything I wanted to include in a submission — custom boss battles, custom stage aesthetics, original characters — but includes the best of my work of what did make the cut. Using the many rounds of feedback from the main devteam and some help from those who were more knowledgeable of the engine, I tweaked, edited, and remodeled parts of my level to get it up to standards. Twilight Terrace, as the name implies, is a garden- and plant-themed level; it used the aforementioned Swinging Claws and some newly created blocks which toggled on/off when the player jumped alongside a nighttime take on Hornet Man’s stage tiles and some premade series assets to pull it all together. In retrospect, the experience creating the level and getting the help and criticism from others solidified the necessity for playtesting and feedback to ensure quality and making one’s idea of something fun and engaging into a reality.
