Let's continue on by discussing some tips for designing levels. The first tip is to design the level for purpose. That is, understand the nature of the level where it takes place within the game, and design the level to fit this purpose. Is the primary purpose of the level to teach the player how to play the game or introduce a new mechanic? Is the level a single-player level where the goal is to advance the story of the game and keep them moving toward their goal? Is the level, a multiplayer death match level in which you need to think about how to keep the players together and creating interesting places to battle, like double box, cover positions, and sniper locations? Or is the level a multiplayer captured the flag type level, where you want each team to feel the level is balanced so their team is not at a disadvantage just based on the geometry of the level? You also want to provide the player with goals and objectives, and these should be meaningful to the player. Meaningful is not just move and shoot until you reach the end of the level. This is where storytelling and emotional design come into play. You need to design how you will communicate the objectives to the player so that they know what they are and allow the player to review the objectives during game play. Because in the heat of the game, they may forget what they're doing and why they're doing it, and don't forget to give progress reports to the player. How far along are they? How are they doing? These are important questions that you should help the player answer. Think of a level like storytelling. The level can have a beginning, middle, and end. Start by easing the player into the level and building up difficulty as they progress. You may create a series of ascending arcs with little crisis before the big climax at the end of the level. Each crisis is a period of high action, followed by a brief break that allows the player to gather their widths and reflect on what just happened. Another important aspect of your level design is to control the flow of the player. Your goal is to keep the player facing challenges of the level and channel them into new areas after those challenges are met. The problem is in how to contain player in a given area of the level until they've accomplished what you want them to do. For example, you can provide barriers that are eliminated as a byproduct of the players making progress. Or have guarded areas that the player must pass through to continue, such as a boss that they must confront and defeat. Another potential problem is how to prevent the player from coming back to an area after they've finished it. For example, you can have one-way pathways. That is, once a player goes through a doorway, they're not allowed to return. Of course, players do unexpected things. As you level design, you must think about ways players can break the game by doing these unexpected things. But you don't want to go too far with flow control. Or the player will feel like they're on rails and having a linear experience. The difficulty level is another thing you must consider in your level design. Level one should be easier than level two, and level two should be easier than level three, and so on. Balancing difficulty can be challenging though. This is particularly relevant when you're trying to cater to both casual and core game players. Of course, you can design easy levels and more difficult levels and let the player choose, but often you don't want to create two entirely different sets of levels. The game designer, Bob Bates proposed an amusement park metaphor when it comes to balancing difficulty. That is, everyone comes through the same gate when they enter the amusement park. In the park there are roller coasters for those that like coasters, there's kiddie rides and games for those that like that, there's character encounters and shows for those that prefer those, and of course, there's food and beverages for all. The amusement park needs to provide good sign posts so that no one gets lost along the way, and at the end of the day, make certain everyone finds their way out. In designing a level in a game, you want to ensure that there's enough of both core and casual challenges to create an enjoyable experience for both player types. We also want to design our levels intelligently. We want to avoid the player getting stuck. For example, a player is stuck if the player falls into a pit and does not die, this would require the player to restart the game. Or if the player uses up a resource that they need to progress, they're stuck. Or a player destroys or kill something that is needed to proceed, they're stuck again. We need to avoid all of these conditions. We also want to avoid head fakes. A head fake is when we trick the player into doing something with the expectation that they'll receive a reward. But there is none. Players expect that there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or rather at the end of a boss battle, there should be a treasure room, not just an empty room. You also want to sequence your visual assets and mechanics across the levels. Don't give them everything in level one, reveal things over time. Players like to have new interesting things to see as they advance through their levels. You may also need to take things away from players if it breaks something. For example, if the player has a very powerful weapon, that would make a level too easy, you may need to find a way to take the weapon away from them in the natural storytelling of the game, without them feeling cheated. Design your levels to take advantage of the strengths of the artificial intelligence of your NPCs while hiding their weaknesses. You don't want to break the lusory attitude of the player by having the NPCs get stuck, walking right into walls, for example. Another tip is to use the geometry and lighting of your game world to help guide the player. Scott Rogers, one of the level designers for the original God of War game, gave an excellent presentation at GDC 2009 entitled, Everything I Learned About Game Design I Learned From Disneyland, in which he talked about how he employed principles used in the design of Disneyland to inform his level design. Most notably, he talked about visual weenies to attract and help direct player's attention, and the use of the squint test to help light the main path that you want your player to follow. In the video that follows Mark Brown discusses why Nathan Drake doesn't need a compass as part of his game makers toolkit. This video gives good examples of Scott Rogers level design principles in guiding the player. Please give it a watch.
