Hello everyone,

     I'm having some trouble thinking of some mechanics and so now I'm turning to some forums to get suggestions from people. My goal with this prototype to come up with some concrete mechanics to work with for a 2D puzzle platformer. 
    So far, I've come up with two mechanics, but there's a lot of room for improvement and room for more mechanics to work on and test. However, here is a quick demo of the prototype.

Since the video, I've added another level and tweaked the mechanics just so it feels better when playing. I really enjoy the teleporting mechanics, but would like suggestions on how to improve it and also suggestions on other mechanics that could complement the teleporting. 

If you want a more detailed version of the mechanics, here you go:

• The player has some default platformer movement (Jumping, moving back and forth, and collisions with walls)
• The player can teleport from one location to another
  • The player is only allowed to teleport to location the player has access to. (For instance, if an area is closed by a platform, then that area cannot be teleported into. The prevents the player from skipping parts of the level.)
• The player is allowed to pull levers which move platforms in the level. It also allows the player to teleport into new areas of the level. The player is also allowed to reclose the platforms.

Any suggestions are really helpful, and will help improve this game! Thanks in advance!

If the "teleportation" is limited to destinations that can be reached on foot, it's only a movement shortcut that makes sense as a mitigation of excessively large levels and excessively annoying obstacles. In the video, the character appears too small to actually jump and climb between platform spaced over twice his height; I think you should develop traditional platformer movement and the corresponding level feature sizes before adding teleportation. You could also consider letting the player shortcut only to positions that have been reached on foot, to ensure it's a real platformer.

Puzzles requiring the player to activate triggers to change level topology are often combined with straightforward action challenges, like letting enemies in from the newly opened exit or having to pass an obstacle or fight to reach an obvious switch, and with tight timing constraints requiring the player to run flawlessly between multiple triggers or towards the exit. Trying to make the triggers complex by themselves often leads to absurd environments and boring trial and error.  

If you do plan on sticking with the teleportation mechanic the one thing I'd recommend to add, which will be a small feat, is visually indicating to the user those area's that the player can teleport to.  Maybe the transparent copy is a green hue for those areas he can access and a red hue for those areas he can't?  Or maybe the transparent image just disappears all together if you hover over areas that are inaccessible. 

Hey Zombie,

I'm a big fan of the way newer Mario games are designed.

Each level has 4 phases:
- Introduction of a new mechanic in a safe area
- Learn the mechanic where there is danger
- A "Twist" on the mechanic to make it interesting
- A tough challenge to test your mastery

Check out Game Maker's Toolkit for a better explanation:

What do you hope to accomplish with this game?  The answer to that will help figure out what mechanics are and aren't worth adding.

On 2/5/2019 at 9:12 PM, jbarrios said:

Check out Game Maker's Toolkit for a better explanation:

Very good...