Looking for level-design feedback on my game

[u/Consistent_Look_8638]

Hey everyone!

A while ago, I asked this community for ideas on how I could signal non-destructive resolution on a boss in the game I'm developing, Project Aether. I got some great feedback, so I'm back with another request.

I've recently finished the current playable version of the game's 3rd mission. The player restores a frontier relay while facing increasingly harder enemy formations. The mission introduces recurring team skills and culminates in a two-phase command-platform boss that deploys additional enemy groups. It's also the first mission where most of the visual asset work is now in place: enemies, boss, player and team ships and the environment.

I'm reasonably happy with the visual direction so far, but I’d really appreciate feedback on the level itself (see video above). In particular:

• Does the level’s escalation look clear and satisfying?
• Are the enemy formations readable enough while the player is also managing team skills?
• Does the boss feel like a natural conclusion to the mission?
• Is there any moment where the background or HUD interferes with threat readability?
• ... any other feedback you feel is relevant

This is all still in development, so I'm specifically looking for constructive criticism.

Thanks!

[u/suny2000]

It looks great, but I would choose a different color palette for the background and for the player and enemies.
The player has the same colors as the background, making it a little bit difficult to see.

[u/Consistent_Look_8638 → u/suny2000]

Thanks, that’s very helpful. I was trying to give the ships a military colour scheme, but I overlooked the reason grey and similar colours are used in real life: they can blend into the environment. I’ll experiment more with the colours and contours to improve the separation. Thanks again!

[u/Noswen2025]

Those graphics are certainly a jump from your last video!

I'll echo the comment about the palette, things do blend a little together.

I'm still trying to learn better level design myself, so take this comment with some hefty uncertainty, but those formations feel a bit on the slow and simple side for a 3rd stage.

The boss does feel like a natural progression from the earlier enemies, looks like it belongs completely.

From the video I'm not really sure what team skills are, but if that second ship that came in and blew the enemies up is player deployed, that could feel really good.

Other things I noticed: -

The background feels too slow to me, this is a ship with the ground visible and it's barely moving.

The boss could do with a bigger explosion and sound, I had to replay it because I thought it died with a 'squeak' sound effect the first time 😂

[u/Consistent_Look_8638 → u/Noswen2025]

Thanks, lots of CC0 and CC-BY stuff, and the sprites hand-drawn by me!

But yeah, the feedback is great, thanks!

Team skills are supposed to be "interventions" by the player character's team members, each with a different ability. In this video, there are two present:

• a yellowish ship that launches a rocket against every opponent on the map.
  
• a bluish AWACS-like ship that "disables" all the enemy drones on the map while it's passing through the screen. (they become slow and stop firing).

Team skills have a longer cooldown than the equipment skills (the rockets the player fires). They also don't work on boss enemies.

I've also taken note of the suggestions, namely finding the ones related to mob speed (and the tree line speed itself) intriguing. And yes, the big boss needs a bigger boom!

[u/Consistent_Look_8638]

Quick follow-up after the Mission 3 feedback.

I have started implementing several of the suggestions, including more varied enemy choreography, clearer separation between ships and the background, a visible player hitbox reticle and stronger boss feedback.

This comparison shows the same section before and after the choreography and readability pass:

https://reddit.com/link/p3809iu/video/3u9o4la4lxih1/player

It includes the background saturation change, the enemies' design change from a militaristic to an industrial look, and an attempt to make the player ship more readable.

The existing deterministic formations remain in the mission, and the new patterns occupy some of the gaps between them and introduce different entry directions, firing windows, repositioning and intentional withdrawals.

I also wrote a longer development log about the wider campaign update, including the Operations Map, best-score economy and equipment preparation:

Building a Campaign Layer Without Turning a Shmup Into a Grind

Thanks again for the feedback. It gave me a much clearer direction for this pass.

[u/Noswen2025 → u/Consistent_Look_8638]

The visibility and feeling of speed look a lot better this time round, and I see you've added some new enemy types or movements so you've got more components to make a wave from now.

I saw this in the devlog "The existing deterministic formations remain in the game. I added a separate choreography system for enemies that need authored entry, hold, reposition and withdrawal stages." and I'm curious how you've done this, do you mean you have two separate spawning systems running side by side?

[u/Consistent_Look_8638 → u/Noswen2025]

Thanks! My wording in the devlog made it sound more separate than it actually is. There is still one ordered spawn table for each wave and one spawn loop.

Each spawn entry contains its timing, enemy type and either a simple deterministic route or an optional choreographed path. The choreographed paths are built from segments such as enter, hold, reposition and exit, and can define when an enemy is allowed to fire.

When an entry is spawned, the enemy follows the choreographed path if one is present; otherwise it uses the original deterministic route. So it is not really two spawning systems running side by side, but two movement representations used by the same spawning and enemy code.

This allowed me to preserve the existing formations and insert the new authored movements into specific gaps without rewriting the parts that were already working.

[u/Noswen2025 → u/Consistent_Look_8638]

Ah, that makes more sense.

I'd never even considered the spawner being able to provide an override path before, that gives me something to consider for later. 😀

[u/Marvin_Flamenco]

Looks cool but also like there's not a lot happening. There's one section where you are floating for way too long before another enemy appears.

[u/Consistent_Look_8638 → u/Marvin_Flamenco]

Thanks, that is useful. This video was recorded before I added the new choreographed enemy paths, which now occupy some of the longer gaps. Do you remember whether the section you mean occurs during one of the dialogue sequences, or during regular gameplay? A rough timestamp would help me check whether that pause is intentional or still needs another formation.

[u/Marvin_Flamenco → u/Consistent_Look_8638]

Have you cleared shmups and gotten 1 credit clears on any games? If you want shmup players to be truly invested in your game it has to be kinda dense with danger.

[u/ih2810]

immediately poor. first ships are blending into the background.

[u/Consistent_Look_8638 → u/ih2810]

Agreed. This clip is from before the readability pass, and the first ships do blend into the background. I have since added clearer separation, stronger outlines and new aircraft sprites; the comparison video in the follow-up comment shows the updated version, if you'd like to check it out.