Level Design: How to Motivate Players
You may have a restaurant with the best cuisine in the world. But if the interior looks crappy and the chairs and tables are crammed to capacity, no one will come to eat at your restaurant! Great food or not!
Just as creating a cohesive impression is important for a restaurant, good level design requires that the essence of the video game manifests in all aspects. To extend the metaphor, let's imagine that the story, character design, and gameplay are the 'food.' Level design is the restaurant itself.
Like a restaurant, video game design is a comprehensive package. The whole product won't shine if only one part is worth someone's time.
In this guide, we will cover a basic blueprint you can follow to optimize level design. It will serve as a great tool to start and continue your journey in creating levels. If you take the time to create a great level, it will make the journey you send players on much better.
Why People Play Games
We play games for the same reasons we watch John Wick or Rick and Morty. We play for the same reasons we read Malazan: Book of the Fallen. We play to escape.
We play to immerse ourselves in a fictional pool, to temporarily distract ourselves from the worries of the real world. This brings us to an important first point before we dive into the game: do not break the suspension of disbelief.
Deception as the Seed
The reasons why some movies, books, and games turn out better than others largely lie in this idea of suspension of disbelief. It is a concept that allows you to make people believe in what is happening in a world that exhibits fantastic properties beyond the ordinary, non-fictional setting.
To captivate people, you must make them believe in the world you've created. This is similar to the movie Inception. The characters didn't always know whether they were in reality or a dream layer. Stretching things too far in level design can yank players out of the convincing fantasy, reducing the enjoyment of the game.
In some movies, you sit and look at the clock every fifteen minutes to find out how much longer the movie has to go. In other cases, you sit through to the end and it ends too quickly. These movies successfully manage to trap you, fully suspending your disbelief.
More for the Mind
If breaking the suspension of disbelief worsens a developed game, then creating boring levels can ruin it. A level that is too difficult can also spoil the gaming experience. To avoid such peaks and dips in difficulty, you need to manage the pacing of the level. How to do it?
Make players show what they've got! A well-posed challenge is a great way to entertain players. This means your levels should gradually increase in difficulty. Adding more enemies and adding more complex enemies are two ways to do this. If your game has puzzles, increase their difficulty.
Know Your Limits
The best way to start developing a new level is to understand the constraints within which it must be created. Let's explain.
There are many different constraints to consider. One is platform constraints. What platform are you developing your game for? Triple-A games released for PS4 have significantly different level design constraints than the next mobile hit. The computational power of the platform is an obvious factor, but what about level length?
Mobile gamers tend to play for shorter periods than console gamers. Based on this, you will likely want to create shorter levels for mobile games.
It's also important to consider your audience. What constraints do they impose on you? What is the typical age of your audience, demographics, interests? Are you developing a game for science-loving teenagers or for twenty-something fantasy fans? The audience will influence the tone and design of the game.
Young children might like rounded edges and bright colors. Adults might prefer sharp edges and dark shades. By the time you are ready to develop a level, your game's audience should already be defined, just remember to keep them in mind when you start planning the design.
Story, Enemies, Characters - Oh My!
What should happen in your level in terms of story, plot, or theme? How can you use level design to achieve that goal? Maybe you need to introduce a new weapon or a new enemy. Maybe you need to introduce a new power-up or a new character ability. All of these are level design tools, and you can use them effectively to keep the player engaged.
In the Halo franchise, there are many signature enemies, vehicles, and weapons. Look back and see how they effectively implemented these elements throughout the level to keep the player engaged without overwhelming them, and to satisfy the story element of the games.
Now it's time to consider the player character itself. How fast is the character? How big? How high can they jump? And what about enemies? How do they behave? Do they attack from afar or lurk around corners to catch you off guard? All these decisions define the level design.
Do you need corners and dark places for enemies to jump out? Do you need ledges and elevated platforms for ranged enemies to strike from above?
Let's Get to Building!
Once you understand the parameters of the level, it's time to outline its design. It's important to maintain the overall vision of the game. Keep it at the forefront of your creative mind when making design decisions. It may be helpful to think about the big picture of the level.
Don't limit it to a box. Where will it take place? Jungle? Caves? Old town? At this stage, it's useful to work on paper. Paper is cheap, and most likely faster than your ability to visualize your ideas in a development platform.
One useful technique is to split the level into parts. This will serve as a blueprint for the map. Just sketch a bare...