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Today's concept art is from the Painted World of Ariamis level within the Dark Souls game.
Dark Souls has excellent level and mechanics design, and is worth a
playthrough just to see the complexity and clarity of the game's level design.
Level Design combines art and technological disciplines to layout the structure of a map,
determine certain features of gameplay (such as the day/night and weather system, avatar spawn location, interactive elements like doors and buttons, and weapon availability), specify locations of
enemies, add scripted events, serve as a vehicle for combining asthetic elements, and manage navmesh, some LODs, and some collision.
Designers sometimes use concepts from board game design to further their video game design skills. There is a lot of overlap between designing for board games and video games, although of course there are many divergent challenges as well.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63933/train
Immersyve's Player Experience of Needs
Satifaction (whitepaper available on the pages portion of Canvas) provides a defined way to measure "fun" or player engagement with your game. It describes psychological factors that result in high game ratings, large sales, developer loyalty, and sustained player interest.
Comptence describes a player's need to feel a sense of mastery over the game. Feeling effective will motivate the player to further action, while feeling ineffective will only frustrate him or her. A sense of competence may be achieved through clever choice of and introduction to game mechanics, through clear feedback, and through challenging the
player without overwhelming them,
creating a sense of Flow, and allowing
them to demonstrate their
mastery of skills.
Autonomy is the player's ability to experience choice in his or her decisions and actions. In order to create a sense of autonomy, designers must think carefully about where to place interactive objects for the player and how the player might meaningfully interact with these objects to achieve goals or create new opportunities.
Relatedness is the intrinsic desire to
connect with others in a way that feels authentic. Multiplayer games are masters at this, however, even in
single player games, interctions with
AI can fulfill this need in players.
With the PENs model in mind, let's now consider how to design a level with purpose, and enhance our players' engagement with our levels. One thing to remember in our level design is that our levels must support the core gameplay systems as well as the game's story.
90% of level design is understanding how to direct the player using subtle cues, so that the player feels that they have choice even in very constrained situations.
Simple, clear goals are satisfying to complete. Creating a series of
concrete goals with clear feedback
can facilitate this engaged state of
mind in which hours pass by
like minutes.
Much like in narrative writing, when creating your level, you want to have peaks and valleys of excitement and player engagement. If everything in the game is a non-
stop stress-filled shooter, your
players will never have time to
build up a sense of dread and
will become too emotionally
taxed to remain
invested.
Now that we have talked briefly about how to think about level design, we can discuss the specifics of how we direct the player. There are many ways to do this including choke points, linear pathways, lights, motion, and sounds.
Another way to break up the pacing of a level and inform a player of their next challenge is to use a camera cut or cinematic. This is a more heavy-handed approach, and should be limited in scope.
Lastly, it is important to reward the player for behavior
that you desire, and for which you have designed the level. If exploration is important to your narrative, add puzzles that can only be solved through exploration, and give the player loot
for completing them. Add hidden areas to
find and unique monsters
guarding them.
There are many ways to engineer excitement and joy through exploration. Since this is one of the primary tools leveraged by level designers, I will talk briefly about it here
Level design not only helps integrate cinematics into the level, but can also help give the world a sense of narrative through interactable objects stashed
throughout the level, as well as through
the aesthetics of the level itself.
Geographic discovery is the type of exploration that probably comes to mind first when you hear the word exploration. Adjusting even a linear level such that there is always a side path to
discover and the player never has to
backtrack can keep this type of
discovery fresh and interesting.
Mechanical discovery is the
process of finding joy out of a deeper understanding of the mechanics of the game. As a level designer, you may help determine when and how these mechanics are
introduced to the player, and where
those skills will be most
challenged.
Remember that your level design
must support core gameplay mechanics. If you are creating a level for a cover shooter that only has 3 points of
cover, something has gone horribly awry. This means you must determine what
your core systems are, in order
to correctly design
a level.
We'll be doing a four-week, five-step, iterative program to progress through building our levels.
This week you'll develop the initial pitch for your game design. You'll determine what type of game it is (strategy, platformer, shooter, etc...) and create a 2D mockup of your level design. It's okay if this design changes during the iterative process, but try to get as close to final as you realistically can.
In this pass you will put together a version of your game in very rough form. It may use a bunch of unreal primitives in order to convey the idea of height changes, or may use spheres to indicate enemy placement, but should be playable and have indications of the genre of game you are creating.
In this pass of the level design, you should try to create the first final
version of the level. Eschew perfectionism. If there are still a few assets that are in blockout during this stage, that is fine. However! You should use this time to identify missing assets and game elements, and make a plan to create any missing components.
This week, you should have revised your prior level design into a nearly completed version of your level. All missing elements from the week prior are expected to be in place and functional.
This week should mimic milestone week in an actual game dev cycle. At the end of it, you are expected to turn in a final, fully functional version of your level for play by myself and your peers.
Where does level design fit into a game development pipeline? Are there multiple places where level design might fit?
Let's discuss some common pitfalls you might run into as you design your levels.
It is vitally important that you scope you final level properly. Figure out your minimum viable product, and then supplement from there.
You will have a better game if you show it to your peers, your teachers, your mother, random people on the streets, you get the idea. You don't always need to make any changes they suggest, but
take a moment to watch people unfamiliar with your game try to play it. Where do
they get stuck? Do they solve puzzles
the way you expected and/or
intended?
Watch out for common bugs such
as areas where players may push through the world geometry, objects that lower on top of your player (like elevators or drawbridges), or spots where your player can snipe enemies with little to no danger (locations outside of the navmesh, for instance).
I cannot stress the importance of correctly scoping your game enough. This is a pitfall many early developers fall into, and one
that you, as producers, should be doubly
aware of so that you can actually FINISH YOUR GAME.
Theoretically, we now have source control on these machines. Next week, we'll cover the source control and project organization lesson, and we will add all old project files into a class Unreal project, from which everyone can pull assets.
Submit a video of the asset functioning in-game, a screenshot of your blueprint graph, and a zip file of all uassets associated with the trap or bomb, including but not limited to: the blueprint, model, all texture maps, and all materials for that asset.
Does this have entertainment value? Will it be useful? What makes this unique or interesting?
Did you create new models for both traps/bombs? How complex was your blueprint graph? Did you achieve the functionality you intended?
Was your object submitted on time for you to receive a review from your classmates? Did you submit the accompanying video? Did you participate in giving reviews to your peers?
Turn all deliverables in on the assignments page on Canvas. Contact me if you run into any trouble attempting to submit your work.
We will conclude class with:
1) A level design breakdown from the game Baldur's Gate.
2) A work period, during which I will be available to discuss progress or give feedback on your traps/bombs. You may also look through the PENS document during this time.