Designing My Game Levels

After looking briefly into Parallax Scrolling mechanics i noticed how by producing a series of of eviroment layers would be more benifital for my work than painting single pieces. I knew that i needed a simple and cartoonly style to fit with my character concepts so i looked at how other games have implemented parallax scrolling and there art style to get ideas of how i could.

Super Mario:


http://sorgatronmedia.com/chachisays/files/2011/07/smb3-2.jpg

Angry Birds:

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2010/09/30/Angry_Birds_update.jpg

Bunny Shooter:


These 3 images i found were the most simple and interesting designs in style and looks, from a players point of view the images how nice styled enivrioments showing both the foreground and simple background creating a 2.5D appearance but as a designers view i can see how they have used different layers to create the effect with a bottom layer/first laying being the floor and base of the environment e.g bunny shooter has grass and mud as its floor layer.

Behind the first layer is the environmental features, in Mario its characteristic hills and mounds, this brings location into the scene with people knowing were abbots they might be with whats in the background. Any over layers behind this is just to help show distance.

I did some simple designs to use as potential environment layers i started by designing some mud bases fore the foreground as my plants would need to grow from the ground the mud designs are shown here: