Finding Inspiration

[primal magnet]

I chose deserts for this exercise.
I used this image as a starting point for getting info about deserts. Here are the 4 types.

This is a subtropical desert. Subtropical deserts can have plants (like in the top image) but they can also be completely barren like this image of the Sahara.

This is a cold desert. Hilly, and sometimes mountainous, and also capable of having greens and plants.

This is a coastal desert. The temperatures here are fine, and they are on coasts as in the name.

This is a polar desert. Similar to cold deserts, but they lack greens/plants and are generally less arid.

All of these deserts share one thing that is the reason they are classified as deserts, being they all get under 10 inches of rain per year.

Here is an image of a desert dust storm. A dust storm part in a level would be interesting. I would make it slow speed, cube gameplay. Maybe using triggers to make the speed even slower than the default slow speed. Simple cube jumps and timings, not any advanced orb combos or gimmicks. I would personally just use pink and black orbs, maybe yellow for a dust storm part. This brings sunset sandstorm to mind, and I believe crohn44 restricted himself to these orbs and small jumps for similar reasons, as in a storm, you are very restricted in movement and wont be jumping high, moving fast, or going all over the place.

In a full desert level, the unique parts would be a part of each type of desert, and each part would be a specific desert of the type, not just the general traits for that type of desert.

I think I would have the level flow like this:
-Start in the subtropical, and go into a dust storm part.
-At the end of the subtropical and storm, there is a visible coast in the background and you are in the coastal desert.
-When the coastal section is over, your camera moves across the ocean (of the coast) and ends at the polar desert.
-The polar desert section starts to become more arid and greens and plants start popping up, transitioning into the cold desert. The level ends after a climb up the cold desert, at the peak with a nice view.