The Launch Octopus stage should be thematically all about water. Fighting in shallow water, deep water, underwater, the surface near water, and (if the game allows it) around moving water like streams and waterfalls are all different. A good interstitial zone would be a cave system with submerged areas, air bubbles, varying water depths, and moving water that shoves you in different directions effectively limiting you to one-direction movement in some cases. If the starting area is this central zone, then you can implement metroidvania mechanics and actually finding the boss (as opposed to a miniboss or a dead end with a hard to reach item and lots of enemies) is difficult. Note that these dead-ends should be conditional, there should be a reason to come back later when you have mobility upgrades (double jump, gliding/floating, dash, dash jump, head bash, a buster upgrade/weapon that can destroy some class of obstacles, limited flying/hovering ability).
Geysers that push you up in the air would be interesting too.
A vertical area with platforms sticking out of a waterfall and streams that are blocked/diverted in some places by other platforms (in terms of fluff, they lead to caves in the background or foreground) would be cool. Falling wouldn't be lethal, but it would be annoying.
The Chill Penguin mountain you shared above could use a cave system in that empty space, or maybe some floating platforms leading to who knows what. Your option is either single-path with middling difficulty or multiple-path with higher difficulty but in different ways on each path.
[X1] Stage concept - Design Discussion
in Mega Man X: Hard Type Series
Posted · Edited by MysticLord · Report reply
The Launch Octopus stage should be thematically all about water. Fighting in shallow water, deep water, underwater, the surface near water, and (if the game allows it) around moving water like streams and waterfalls are all different. A good interstitial zone would be a cave system with submerged areas, air bubbles, varying water depths, and moving water that shoves you in different directions effectively limiting you to one-direction movement in some cases. If the starting area is this central zone, then you can implement metroidvania mechanics and actually finding the boss (as opposed to a miniboss or a dead end with a hard to reach item and lots of enemies) is difficult. Note that these dead-ends should be conditional, there should be a reason to come back later when you have mobility upgrades (double jump, gliding/floating, dash, dash jump, head bash, a buster upgrade/weapon that can destroy some class of obstacles, limited flying/hovering ability).
Geysers that push you up in the air would be interesting too.
A vertical area with platforms sticking out of a waterfall and streams that are blocked/diverted in some places by other platforms (in terms of fluff, they lead to caves in the background or foreground) would be cool. Falling wouldn't be lethal, but it would be annoying.
The Chill Penguin mountain you shared above could use a cave system in that empty space, or maybe some floating platforms leading to who knows what. Your option is either single-path with middling difficulty or multiple-path with higher difficulty but in different ways on each path.