The importance of a good game level design

When I started developing SlideFour all my efforts and my attentions were directed to coding, graphics, sounds and music.

Even it is a simple game, as an independent solo developer it sometimes seemed to me too big to complete, so it's obvious that I was unable to see much of other relevant details. My thoughts was always "I must publish ASAP the app, I must complete coding the game ASAP, ..." and so on.

Frankly, an important thing that I wrongly left behind is a good design of the game levels.

During the game development I code the logic, try to play, back to keyboard to fix errors, try to play again, added new features, try to play, changed some graphics, try to play again, choosed some soundfx, try to play again, ..again.. again... 
As result, I became a master of SlideFour, because I know all the game features, all the tricks and I discovered in deep some gameplay characteristics. The game levels seemed to me increasingly easy to complete.

A game that is too simple will soon get boring, so to insert some difficulties I have created some really difficult ones.
If you don't believe it, try to solve the levels of the "Numb3rs" and "A bit more tricky" worlds, trying to collect all the stars and most of the elements. I guarantee you that the solution is possible without using any upgrades, but you will have to plan your moves very well.

In this way I understood the importance of a good level designer. How many times have we read this role among the credits of a game? Unfortunately, the greatest attention falls on programmers, graphic designers and musicians, but all roles are fundamental in the development of a game.

About this, I will soon be writing a bit about my adventures about how to publicize the game, I discovered at my expense that marketing is a fundamental part, but this will be the subject of a blog post in the future.

Keep in mind..

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