The drawings below present the initial concepts I came up with, depicting the key areas of the level. The centre is a huge space with a dead tree with a hangman knot on it, a fallen tree, and smoke coming out of the well - visible from far away, indicating the centre to the player. The entrance to the maze is framed with two busts of the Evil Lady on the huge pillars, dominating over the player. There would be some trees next to the entrance. I plan to let the player climb on the one of the pillars, so he could see the level from the top perspective also.
The entrance to the Maze
Inside - starting point of one of the minigames
The centre of the Maze - the "Boss battle" place.
I came up with the colours concept after working on the concept drawings, so they are not alike of them. The idea is to use almost monochrome colour palette for the environment, with only red for drawings and very dark green for ivy standing out. There would be a lot of shaded and dark areas. Regarding the lighting and colour, in the end we decided to go for the middle one, the concepting came with a massive help when texturing and adding the lights.
I considered a few labyrinth layouts, in the end I decided to use the square one, with the empty area in the centre. This Maze layout concept was to be the one I used creating the level.
Experimenting with colour and light
Maze layout I used for creating the level