It's been so long since this mechanic came out, it's incredibly underused

I felt the need to sprite an additional flower color, as well as hanging flowers, since I wanted to draw attention away from the purple lilac. The flowers are also often grouped into similar colors, because that also makes the groups of purple fit in more.

The trees all belong to spooooky; for each one I spirited 3 or 4 variants with more yellow/orange leaves. Each tree in the level is one decal with 5 flag decals on top of it, and there are savefile-persistent flags set to progress as the player hits certain milestones.

I've heard that the level is a bit under-decorated. This is true; I underscoped decoration since I was so worried about getting the trees to change color as you progress through the level. In the end, partially thanks to lonn layers (a lifesaver) it was easier than I expected.

I consider fall to be one of the most difficult aesthetics to nail in a celeste level; nothing ever really matches going outside in the fall and staring in awe at individual trees (yes I do this). I don’t think this level succeeds either, but I do think specific parts capture some aspect of it.

There also used to be a challenge with the extended variant “lava/ice everywhere” (it swaps when you dash, it’s super cool and very underused). It was a fun twist but it made the vertical room way too hard (and playtesters noted that it ruined the atmosphere).

Early on I came up with the idea of having a knowledge check in the form of doing part of the map grabless, instead of a dash code. I loved this idea of imposing challenges on gameplay you’ve done many times (kind of like the Forgotten unlock in TBoI), so I did it a bunch in the level.

The SFX puzzle itself has also been in my head for several years; now felt like a good time for it, though I think maybe I should’ve included other similar puzzles. The shape is a FEZ reference because it’s the first geometry I placed then I never felt the need to change it.

Originally, the SFX puzzle gave the hint about the blue text; and the blue text led to the hidden signs. This got flipped after some playtesters figured out the blue text immediately, and the blue text was made more clear (though it probably could still have used a more distinct single hint)

I use this one diagram program all the time and I used it for this map to brainstorm what sort of puzzles would fit the map, and what order they’d go in. I don’t have that anymore but I did copy it into lonn. A lot has been moved around or scrapped since then, though!

The exception is the room left of the well; it’s meant to feel like a secret, but the room geometry tries to push your eye towards it. It’s a clue that there’s more to find.

Eventually I settled on more-hidden secret rooms, with a map in the well to show their locations; this worked perfectly.

The reason the level’s geometry is so “broken” around the edges of rooms is to make the 4 main hidden rooms blend in more with the rest of the level. Those went back and forth from more- to less- hidden as I wanted players to find them during precisely their 2nd run through the level.

I like having a “pitch” to myself for my levels (say, a map of just the 2b heart room). For this, the whole level came from the concept of beating a map, entering the heart room, and being told to TRY AGAIN and seeing a bunch of cryptic symbols; replaying the map you’d find stuff you’d missed before

The rest of the main rooms are partially based on interesting interactions I noticed with the mechanic, and partially to conform with a structure that’d allow secrets. This section was room 3 until zucchini (playtesting before I added any secrets) played it and then it changed immediately

I considered a few options for the main gameplay mechanic of the level; It needed to be something easy enough that repeat playthroughs wouldn’t drag, but interesting enough that variations like grabless would offer unique spins. I decided on a mechanic I’d coded sometime back.

As Autumn Colors Fall is a Celeste level I made for the easy-maps-only Breeze Contest. Inspired by ricky06’s reflections about his map, I wanted to delve into my design process for this level.
Heads up, I’ll be spoiling the puzzles!

I've been creating a level centered around the idea of the kind of stress you'd get from a tough final exam; it's a big open-ended map but you've got to contend with a strict time limit. It's definitely been a victim of scope creep, but it's getting close to the finish!

speaking of lava layer, here's one troll in that level that I've never seen anyone encounter! It was meant to be a "gotcha" for folks who wanted more time to align the dash up, but it turned out A. you don't really need more time for that and B. retrying would be simpler anyway.

Hi, I'm tobyaaa! I'm an aspiring game designer who's made a lot of modded content for 2018 indie platformer Celeste. I often try to aim for very unconventional levels, having made an SMW-themed map, countless kinds of puzzle, and I've even coded simple 3D graphics once!