This is a 2D platformer level design practice based on the game VVVVVV.
Tool used: VVVVVV Level Editor
Red Redemption tells the story of the fall of a red regime. It was inspired from nowhere; it was just the first time when I casually tried VED and randomly edited the map, and then the embryo of a palace of a red regime was created. And I thought it was probably okay to be filled with some mythical, marvelous narratives. So I made up this story, with some relevant historical references, of course. The narration is quite straightforward to understand through dialogues in games, so I won't explain it here.
About non-musical: I was not intentionally making this level non-musical--I just purely forgot to implement proper music! However, coincidentally, the birthplace terminal tells the player that this square is quiet and "magically silenced." I want to create a sense of a depressing, stressful environment with lots of tension over there, so it turns out that without background music might not be a bad thing.
One of the most noteworthy parts of this level is the consistency I want to create between rooms, despite doubts about whether it is achieved. If you explore all rooms in this level, you might notice a clear path of each part of the square and their relations--east and west square, basement, dungeon, lobby, bedroom, etc. I intended to set one core experience of gameplay for players that on every floor, they all need to go back to the same room they've been to before from one objective to another. The entire map is not that big, so I guess this way could also enrich players' experience. However, I found myself indulging in the wildest whimsical idea--it adds lots of frustration to the play experience and increases the level of difficulty in designing each room, for I need to make sure that those rooms are bi-directional accessible. Therefore, I discarded this fanciful idea in my 2.0 version. I think it is a good idea in a 3D level design work or a top-down 2D level but absolutely not in a platformer level.
Most of the enemy blocks are representing the actual enemies, i.e., rebel soldiers that capture the square. But there is one type of enemy block that I want to note is the moving spike. This appears in many rooms, often with many spikes on the wall and ceiling. Those moving ones represent those that are falling down. The core idea here is the background track of each one, marking the locus of their movement. Players will be able to make anticipation and reasonably calculate the right way to cross those rooms with moving spikes.
Why is the locus so important? Because of another design idea here: I intended to make most of the rooms show the scenes of two floors simultaneously. Players are able to take a glimpse at what happens upstairs by simply pressing the action button to jump up to the ceiling. That's said, usually the full scene of a room is also unable to be seen in one single room. Players have to jump up to see the top half of the room. So, the locus here to mark all moving spikes is also unable to be fully observed. Players cannot see the spikes in the top half when they are in the bottom half, and vice versa. However, they can anticipate the position of the moving spike based on the locus, and then they can find out a way to cross these rooms. This feature can be observed totally in the basement room.
In the basement, study, as well as the repository, you could see many disappearing blocks and their concomitant spikes. This is because I want to create the feeling that many items are packed in those rooms with a messy setting, which indicates that there's been a long time since nobody has been there. And players must clean a way out by destroying these blocks and also need to be careful of spikes.
The biggest problem of this level is the severe lack of playtesting and polishing work. This level is made in a rush, which is due to my failing attempts at reasonable time management. I wouldn't call the overall design idea a bad idea, but this level, at least according to what it currently presents, is undoubtedly showing some awkward layouts. There are, as some of them were pointed out by Henk on Tuesday's playtest, many sudden death places, unreasonable checkpoints, bitter experiences, etc. The problem is that for the final version of this level, there is not even a complete playtest taking place(almost until the last minute I was still doing some changes.) After I played it a few times, with attentiveness, I found that more and more playtest work and polishment can literally solve most of the current flaws.
I leave many detailed aspects of my design statement in the commentary of my playthrough video. You may watch it to have a sense of my design idea a little bit.