Game Level Design

Game Level Design

A very fine evening to thee, mortals.

So, this week, I read "Game Level Design", a chapter for an unnamed book written by Ed Bryne. This covers the essential components of designing a level for a game, and applies them to create a basic level for a basic game. As always, I was posed a question before going into this;

"What are the key lessons for level design that Ed Bryne draws from his analysis of a simple level?"

Unless I'm very much mistaken, this is just asking for what he said in the Summary. Well, I'll tell ye.

Ed's summary was made up of three main points:

> The more players can complete a challenge through interacting and observing, the better. Giving them constant prompts and special mechanics to help them finish fells like they're having their hand held, which can be incredibly inappropriate in certain games.

> Finishing a level can be its own reward, without the need for an end-of-level boss or animation.

> The fewer cases in which the player can blame the developer the better. If they blame the developer for their failure, the player gets more and more likely to stop playing; on the other hand, if they blame themselves for a failure, then they're inclined to try again and do better this time. Even better than this, according to Ed, is to make fail-states as rare as possible.

Well, that was easy. Too easy...

As this has been a very brief post thus far, I'll include other lessons I got out of this, just in case.

> Story is a nonessential component in most games; Chess, Tetris, Solitaire, Minesweeper, and so many other games don't have any kind of story to guide the player, unless the player makes one up in their own head. It's nice to have a story in many games, helping the player understand and giving their actions context, but it's not entirely necessary.

> Giving the player visual clues rather than straight-up tutorials is a much better way of conveying method or context. For example, rather than explaining how to jump onto a seesaw to make it work (Bryne's own example), give the player a seesaw and some boxes to jump off and let them work it out. Of course, this isn't always possible, but when it is, it makes for a much better experience.

> Make sure the environment and challenges of the level are thematic, that they fit with the theme of the game. If it's a game set in space, have sci-fi themed challenges like zero gravity. If it's set in the jungle, use a jungle theme like bugs and fruit and monkeys.

> Games make use of "Game Logic" rather than real life logic. In a game, a ball can hit the ground and roll in a specific direction predicted by the player, while in the real world, there would be far too many unpredictable effects on the ball, and it would likely go in another direction entirely.

Well, that's mostly it, I think. Intrinsic and extrinsic knowledge was mentioned, but that's more or less self-explanatory. I'll leave you to your lives again for a while mortals.

Praise the Emperor!