Level Design Principles
By Skilbs 5 Comments
I happened to have some notes on this to hand and I have nothing better to do that write a second theory blog post in one day.
What Is Level Design
Ernest Adams, founder of the IGDA and authour of Fundamentals of Game design, one of the textbooks used alongside my course, describes Level Design as "the process of constructing the experience that will be offered directly to the player, using components provided by the game designer."
Level Design controls several key elements;
- The area a game takes place. - A game designer may decide the basic events and types of activities that a player will experience while playing a game, but the level designer decides exactly when and how players will experience them. They take a game design and add detail.
- Conditions in the Level - Stuff like what doors are locked.
- What challenges users encounter while playing the game
- Victory/ Loss conditions.
- Conveying narrative - Level designers will often work closely with the writers to combine narrative and gameplay events together.
- Atmosphere and look of a level - Art directors will determine the feel of the level, it is up to the level designer to convey this in the design. How will this forest be spooky, how desolate will this wasteland be.
Key Principles
Many design principles apply directly to a specific genre of game. The following principles are slightly more universal, though there is debate on whether there truly are such things as universal design principles. These are not rules. They are merely good points to start with when coming to design a level.
- When a player overcomes a challenge that requires resources, provide more resources. - After a large gunfight, give the player some more ammo.
- Make the level make sense. - If you place obstacles and rewards in places that you would expect to find them, it is more intuitive for the player as to where to look, or where to avoid. Players wont check the bathrooms of a military base for ammo. They also wont expect a laser death grid in a suburban home. Unless it is justified in the narrative or setting. This is one of the vaguest and hardest to define principles.
- Clearly inform player of short term goals - While you should avoid holding the players hand, you should not leave them stranded. The player should always know roughly what they need to do to proceed.
- Allow players to determine the consequences of actions - A game should not require the player to get through a level by trial and error. Players should know what part of a level will kill them or at least make an informed guess.
- Reward the player - If the player completes an objective they should receive a reward. This can be as simple as a voice coming up on the radio and saying well done. Include more rewards than punishments.
- Foreground > Background - Try to design the settign so that the players attention is drawn to their immediate surroundings. When you build a level you have to keep in mind you have a budget, polygons, only spend them on background elements if it is not at the expense of the foreground. There could be an awesome view out that window but if the room you are in looks like shit, you have failed as a designer.
- Levels should get harder - But then you should be able to win.
- Multiple difficulty settings - This is primarily a game design issue but multiple pathways with different difficulties but a larger reward behind the harder ones is good level design.
Can you think of any other general design principles? What about genre specific principles. Action games should vary the pace, lulls in the action allow the player to regroup, reflect on their experience and prepare to tackle the next objective, if the action never drops, the player can become overwhelmed and lose track of what they are meant to be doing.
The 400 project, is an attempt to collect a list of 400 rules for game design. If you are interested check it out.