Read Brendon's post about level design "readability"

Brendon posted today about how to design levels which players can easily "read" - basically, how to avoid unintended visual ambiguities which confuse and thwart players. In Skin Deep, it was super important for us to avoid unintended challenges. We were already stuffing these levels with enemies, goals, readables, and hidden loot. If the player is distracted trying to figure out where they can and can't physically fit in a level, they're not gonna be focused on the stuff you actually want them to be thinking about. Brendon shares the "metrics" for Skin Deep in this post - the rules about how high and wide ledges, doors, squeezable gaps, etc. had to be in Skin Deep to avoid visual ambiguity. Check it out! He suggests a couple things in this post that I had no idea the level design team was even doing! (The black-and-white blur technique is particularly surprising to me!)