http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DanTaylor/20131006/197209/Ten_Principles_of_Good_Level_Design_Part_2.php
Following on from the principles discussed earlier in
Part 1, let's get stuck in to the final five, starting with...
Good level design empowers the player
“Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.” - Goethe
Videogames are escapism... pure and simple. Why would players want to
escape to somewhere more mundane than their existing lives? Level
Designers should never ask players to do something that they can easily
do in real life – your mission objectives should shun banal and
repetitive chores, and always be interesting and exciting!
This may
sound obvious, but even the best game developers can sometimes lose
sight of this basic principle, as comedian
Dara O’Brien points out.
Figure 10: Red Faction Guerrilla – taking out a bridge’s support struts with the concrete-eating nano-rifle is, quite frankly, freakin’ awesome.
For players to experience true empowerment, their actions must have a
noticeable effect on the game world. On a low, immediate level this
could be the interaction with (or, more usually, the destruction of)
objects within the environment, but, if you don't have the immediate
gratification of destructible scenery, like Red Faction (Fig. 10), you
can script your levels to reflect the player's influence in other ways,
like the citizens of Empire City and New Marais in inFAMOUS (Fig. 11).
Figure 11: inFamous – the karma system is fully
integrated into the open-world level design, with scattered
side-missions that force the player to make moral choices (diffuse the
bombs and save the citizens, or detonate them to absorb their power),
and a populace that will throw rocks at your enemies... or you,
depending on your play-style.
For Medal of Honor Heroes 2, we wanted to make the secondary objectives
more than just a shopping list of hidden Nazi dossiers, so we created
side missions where the player could rescue allied troops, trapped at
certain locations hidden throughout the level. These troops, once freed,
would fight alongside the player, which made him/her feel that there
was a direct consequence, and reward, for his/her actions.
Good level design allows the player to control the difficulty
The difficulty of games is one of the hardest things to get just right.
The standard technique of having Easy, Medium and Hard difficulty
settings feels particularly arcane when you consider that players are
asked to make this decision before they have even attempted the first
level, and thus have no idea of which setting is appropriate for their
skill level.
A systematic approach to this is to implement dynamic difficulty, most
noticeable in games like Fallout & Skyrim, where the enemies become
more powerful (and treasure more valuable) based on the player’s
experience – thus adjusting the challenge on the fly, to suit the
player’s competence.
However... such systems are not always available, and so a well designed
level must allow players to manage difficulty themselves, through
clever use of risk and reward. The basic path through your level or
mission should be properly paced for a player of moderate ability, with
the appropriate peaks and troughs of challenge (along with a splash of
surprise), but there should be areas off the main path that present a
clear opportunity for the skilled player (or an easier option for those
less adept).
Whenever the player has to make a path choice, both the
risk, and resultant reward should be clearly called out using the
level’s language (as mentioned earlier), enabling the player to make an
informed decision (Fig. 12).
Figure 12: Burnout Paradise – Skilled players can
take a risk and aim for short cuts, which are clearly called out by
yellow barriers (a recurring motif). Difficulty is indicated by the
narrowing of the track, and the reward, which may not be obvious from
the in-game camera, is a reduced time and a sweet bit of air.
Whilst the manifestation of this principle may be obvious for a racing
game, it is still equally applicable to other genres, like shooters or
RPGs, where these high risk/reward areas might take the form of a
powerful weapon that is in a tricky to reach (but easy to see) spot, or a
flanking route with a guard whose back is turned, allowing players
skilled in stealth the opportunity to sneak past.
These side-paths can
also constitute a puzzle, requiring a little more cerebral skill to
access (Fig. 13), and can even be worked into optional, secondary
objectives (e.g. Find the U-boat commander and kill him to unlock the
enhanced Luger), making them more apparent and extending your
replayability.
Figure 13: Skyrim – The chest is clearly visible
from the main path, but has no obvious access; players have to use a
dragon-shout to leap a chasm (an advanced technique) and pick a lock if
they want to collect the treasure. All the clues are clearly visible for
the keen player who is ready to put in a little extra effort to get
some cool swag.
Good level design is efficient
A game only has a finite amount of resources to draw from, ranging from
hardware limitations (like system memory) to production realities (such
as art capacity). It’s the designer’s responsibility to maximise the
use of those resources, and create efficiency through good design. In
level design this means not only using the whole animal, from nose to
tail, but doing it quickly, and more than once...
Modular design is your friend – a smart designer won’t design a level,
he/she will design a series of modular, mechanic-driven encounters, that
can be strung together to create a level. And another level. And
another level.
By applying simple modifiers to these modules you can create variation,
building more levels with less work, and less risk. This technique also
creates a series of familiar encounters that the player can use to
learn and master your mechanics, while the modifiers applied to these
encounters keep them fresh by providing increased challenge and
surprise.
Take time out to play with any of Bethesda’s tool-kits for Skyrim or
Fallout and you can quickly see how a relatively small team were able to
create so much awesome content... it’s all modular. Such a high level
of modularity might not work for every game, but it can certainly be
applied to any game in varying degrees... For Medal of Honor the
Producer tasked us with creating “Battle Moments” – sections of intense
combat gameplay, ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, which we could
rapidly prototype and iterate on, before stitching them together in
different contexts to make a number of exciting levels. This enabled the
designers to build a lot more content in a lot less time, and still
keep it interesting.
Your trusty art team will spend a considerable amount of time making
your levels look amazing, when most of the time the player will plough
through their beautiful work in a matter of seconds. Reusing areas of
your level not only gets you more bang for your art buck, but alleviates
the amount of level geometry you have to keep in memory.
This can
sometimes be referred to as back-tracking, which has a somewhat derisory
connotation, and so, as a designer, one must be careful to make sure
such spaces are designed for bi-directional gameplay, preferably with a
key modifier on the second pass (Fig. 14).
Figure 14: Halo 3, Mission 6: The Ark -
In this level, Master Chief fights his way along a large stretch of
desert... and then all the way back again! But, as you’d expect from a
team like Bungie, they keep it fresh... by giving the Chief a
super-powerful tank to make the return journey in, thus using the same
space for very different gameplay.
A good designer should use every last bit of the level, by providing
implicit objectives that require exploration to complete – the skulls in
Halo 3, the COG tags in Gears of War, the feathers in Assassin’s
Creed... all designed to extend the gameplay time with no extra hit to
level production.
These collectible elements, along with the risk/reward paths and
secondary objectives mentioned in the previous principle, will all
contribute towards your game’s replayability, generating further
efficiencies. But be sure that there is a long-term incentive for
completing these gameplay objectives like a significantly different
play-experience or a clearly telegraphed reward (new power-ups, weapons,
etc...). Better yet, give them context by integrating them into your
narrative like Astro Boy Omega Factor(Fig. 15).
Figure 15: Astro Boy Omega Factor –
This GBA title is still one of the best examples of replayability ever
made. Upon finishing the game on the first play-through, you get a
somewhat unsatisfying ending... but you are flung back in time so you
can use all the power-ups you have collected to access new areas of old
levels, unlocking more levels and power ups, and the true, extremely
awesome ending.
Good level design creates emotion
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court officially classified Videogames as
art... which, according to the dictionary, makes them “the quality,
production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of
what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance”.
But this is slightly pragmatic analysis of what constitutes for art.
From a purely subjective stand-point, I would posit that art is
anything specifically created to provoke an emotional reaction;
paintings, sculpture, photography, music, movies... are all created to
encourage some kind of emotional response in their recipient. This is
particularly true for videogames.
The classical art form that is, perhaps, most analagous to level design
is architecture... and architects have been messing with people's
emotions for centuries. For example, architects will vary the height of
windows depending on the emotional response they are trying to evoke:
place them below knee-height, and widows create a sensation of power and
voyeurism... place them above shoulder-height, and they create a sense
of persecution and encarceration.
Architects have adapted
Mazlow's Heirarchy of Needs (which are defintely too abstract for direct application to level design) into a series of very useful
architectural concerns that can help deigners create an evocative space. These theories, along with the more traditional use of
spatial metrics,
can be used to create what I like to call "spatial empathy" witihin
your levels, something which this year's Tomb Raider does with aplomb
(Fig. 16).
Figure 16: Tomb Raider – In her latest adventure,
Lara Croft is taken from narrow, claustrophobic caves, through
sprawling, epic jungles, to vertiginous mountain ascents... with each
space carefully selected and crafted to elicit a range of varying
emotions.
In fact, the player's desired emotional response to your level is so
important, that it should always be the starting point of your design.
From there, you can drill down and select which spatial metrics,
narrative elements and game mechanics can be deployed to best create
that response.
Want to create a feeling of persecution? Place enemy AI
that actively hunts the player. Want to create a feeling of
exhilaration? Engage the player in a high-speed chase on the open road.
Want to create a feeling of desperation? Give players a time-limit and
an almost insurmountable objective (Fig. 17). All of these devices, and
more, have been used in games with the express intention of eliciting
an emotional response through the game's mechanics.
Figure 17: Company of Heroes – Carentan – In the
final act of this mission, the player’s squad are forced to fall back to
a church. Trapped in a corner, the player has to hold off the Nazis
until reinforcements arrive. What dictates when this will happen? A
timer? No. The number of Nazi’s remaining? No, there are infinite
enemies... it’s the player’s squad’s health.
Reinforcements will only
appear just as the player is about to die. A little unfair, perhaps...
but this gameplay conceit creates a palpable feeling of desperation
against overwhelming odds. And extreme relief when finally rescued!
Good level design is driven by your game’s mechanics
“Books let you imagine extraordinary things. Movies let you see
extraordinary things. And videogames? Videogames let you do
extraordinary things” - unknown
Above all else, great level design is driven by interaction - the game’s
mechanics. Game levels don’t just provide context for mechanics, they
provide the very reality in which they exist.
I like to describe a game level as the meta-physical medium through
which gameplay is delivered. This may sound fancy and contrived, but
what it really means is that your level should be a gameplay delivery
system, whose primary function is to leverage your mechanics to create a
great experience. Topology, architecture, objectives, interactions,
combat scenarios, etc... should all be designed first-and-foremost to
highlight all your great gameplay systems.
To do this successfully, it’s important to have a thorough understanding
of your game’s mechanics before embarking on your level design. This
is not always possible when systems and levels are being designed
concurrently... but you should at least have an idea of the sort of
systems that are being built (as well as a trust that they will be
built, so that you don't find yourself wasting time designing around
incomplete features that aren't quite ready yet).
The up-side in this
situation is that the relationship works both ways: if you have a cool
idea for your level, you can request the necessary gameplay systems to
make it work.
Figure 18: Deus Ex Human Revolution – the
side-quests in this game were designed to highlight specific mechanics;
in one mission the player has to use his ability to drag unconscious
bodies to pull a drugged victim over a cliff and make an assassination
look like suicide.
And when I talk about systems, this includes AI... something that can
easily be overlooked, creating untold problems. A surprising amount of a
level designer’s time is taken up with bending mischievous AI to his or
her will! Develop a relationship with your AI team... so you know what
clever features they’ve got planned, and they know what issues you are
having. Who knows... if you ask them nicely, they may even create
special behaviours for that cool sniper ambush you designed.
Figure 19: Batman Arkham City – the Riddler challenges spread
throughout the open-world, cleverly reuse existing mechanics,
encouraging the player to find new ways to use his equipmet. This makes
for some great design efficacy , as well as creating cerebral gameplay
that fuels the fantasy of being the world's greatest detective, and not
just some guy in a cape who's really good at beating people up.
Always remember that interactivity is what makes videogames different
from any other form of entertainment: books have stories, movies have
visuals, games have interaction. If your level design isn’t showcasing
your game mechanics, your players might as well be watching a movie or
reading a book.
And that’s ten! I want to be clear that in no way do I consider these
principles to be definitive... but hopefully they are a good start to
creating a base-line standard of quality and innovation in level design.
I expect them to be continually refined and tweaked, much like a game
itself.
To conclude, here are the 10 principles, summed up in my poor imitation of
Rams’ succinct, simplistic style, for quick and easy reference when building your levels.Good level design...
- Is fun to navigate – It uses a clear visual
language to guide the player along the primary path, and creates
interest through verticality, secondary paths, hidden areas and maze
elements.
- Does not rely on words to tell a story – Aside
from the explicit narrative called out by story and objectives, good
level design delivers implicit narrative trough the environment, and
provides players with gameplay choice from which to create their own
emergent narrative.
- Tells the player what to do, but not how to do it –
It makes sure mission objectives are clearly communicated, but lets
players complete them any way they like, and, where feasible, in any
order.
- Constantly teaches the player something new – It
keeps the player engaged by continuously introducing new mechanics all
the way through the game, and prevents old mechanics from becoming stale
by applying modifiers or reusing them in unusual ways.
- Is surprising – Classic Aristotelian pacing is not
always appropriate for an interactive medium, and it is not enough to
simply pace all your levels to the standard “rollercoaster” model. Good
level design is not afraid to take risks with the pace, aesthetics,
locale and other elements to create an experience that is fresh.
- Empowers the player – Videogames are escapism and,
as such, should eschew the mundane. Furthermore, good level design
reinforces players’ empowerment by allowing them to experience the
consequences of their actions, in both the immediate, moment-to-moment
gameplay, and in the long term, through the holistic design of all
levels.
- Allows the player to control the difficulty – It
gears the main path toward players of basic ability, presenting advanced
players with optional challenge through clearly communicated
opportunities of risk and reward.
- Is efficient – Resources are finite. Good level
design creates efficiencies through modularity, bi-directional gameplay
and integrated, exploratory bonus objectives that make use of the whole
play-space.
- Creates emotion – it begins at the end, with the
desired emotional response, and works backwards, selecting the
appropriate mechanics, spatial metrics and narrative devices to elicit
that response.
- Is driven by the game’s mechanics – above all, it
showcases the game’s mechanics through the medium of the level, to
reinforce the uniquely interactive nature of videogames.
References
Ten Principles for Good Design - Dieter Rams
A Theory of Fun - Raph Koster
DICE 2012 Keynote Address - Todd Howard
Beyond Pacing: Games Aren't Hollywood - Jacek Wesolowski
Fun and Uncertainty - Alex Mandryka
Motivation and Personality - A.H. Maslow
The Metrics of Space - Tactical Level Design - Luke McMillan
