GAME LEVEL

DESIGN
MMX3103
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Key Design Principle

Two (2) types of design principles to design a level

Universal Level Design

Principles

Genre-specific Level
Design Principles
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Universal Level Design Principles

• Aim at designing levels in any kind of game

• Make the early levels of a game tutorial levels

• Vary the pacing of the level

• When the player surmounts a challenge that consumes his

resources, provide more resources.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Universal Level Design Principles

• Avoid conceptual non sequiturs.

• Unless your level is either intentionally surreal or meant to be

funny, you shouldn’t build things that make no sense, such as
rooms accessible only via ventilation shafts.

• Don’t put dangers or rewards in places in which no sane

person could possibly expect to find them.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Universal Level Design Principles

• Clearly inform the player of his short-term goals.

• Unless your game offers only a sandbox for player to simply plays around for the fun, at any
given time, he will be working to achieve a whole hierarchy of challenges.

• From the overall victory condition of the game down to the problem occupying his
attention at the immediate moment.

• You can either tell the player exactly what to do or let the player to discover the long term
goal through exploration or observation.

• You should never leave the player wondering what to do next.

• The current or next short term goal should be obvious.

 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Universal Level Design Principles

• Be clear about risks, rewards, and the consequences of decisions.

• When facing challenge, the player should always have some idea of the benefits of
success and the price of failure.

• Old video games used the learn by dying approach, which gave players no
information about the elements of the game world. So the avatars died repeatedly
as the players learned.

• Nowadays, this consider as extremely bad design practice!

• Players may not know every detail of the game world, he should be able to make a
reasonable guess based on the context.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Universal Level Design Principles

• Reward the player for skill, imagination, intelligence, and dedication.

• These four qualities used to distinguish a good player.

• A good player deserve to be rewarded.

• Rewards can be in many forms:

● Powerups, shortcut through higher levels, secret levels
● Mini games
● Cut scenes or other narrative materials.
● Awards, high scores.

● Players like to be told when they’ve done a good job.

 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Universal Level Design Principles

• Reward in a large way, punish in a small way

• The hope of success motivates players more than the fear of failure.
• If a game repeatedly smacks them down hard, players will become
discouraged and abandon the game with the feeling that they’re being abused.

• The primary objective is to give the players an enjoyable experience.

• Build more rewards into your level than punishments.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Universal Level Design Principles

• The purpose of an artificial opponent is to put up a good fight and

then lose.
• Design the level so that the player will get better and better at
overcoming the challenges until he/she succeeds at all of them.
• In a single player game, we always want the players to win
eventually.
● An unbeatable level is a badly designed level.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Universal Level Design Principles

• Implement multiple difficulty settings.

• Make your game accessible to a wider audience by allowing them to switch
the difficulty of your game.

• Switch between easy, normal or hard setting.

• An easy game should mean EASY.
• You gain nothing by restricting your game to only highly skilled players to
enjoy it.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Genre –specific Level Design Principles

• Apply only to games within specific genres.

• Action Games
• Vary the pace.
• Action games put more stress on the player than any other genre does, so the
universal principle vary the pace applies more strongly to action games than
to other genres.
• Players must be able to rest both physically and mentally between bouts of
high speed action.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Genre –specific Level Design Principles

• Strategy Games
• Reward planning
• Strategic thinking means planning, anticipating an opponent’s move
and preparing a defense, as well as attacks and considering an
opponent’s possible defense moves.
• Give players defensible locations to build in and advantageous
positions to attack from.
• But let the players discover these places for themselves.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Genre –specific Level Design Principles

• Role-Playing Games
• Offer opportunities for character growth and player self expression.
• Character growth is a major player goal in any RPG.
• Some players consider it even more than victory.
• Every level should provide opportunities to
achieve character growth
• Combat, puzzle solving, trade and so on.
• Every level should also include opportunities
for the player to make decisions.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Genre –specific Level Design Principles

• Sports Games
• Verisimilitude is vital.
• Not break into levels as usual games, consists of individual matches played
with different athletes or teams.
• Each match as a level.
• Players of sports games value a close relationship between the video game
and the real world.
● The simulation of the match play must be completely convincing.
● Try to model each team and stadium as closely as possible.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Genre –specific Level Design Principles

• Simulation (vehicle)
• Reward skilful manoeuvring.
• Steering a vehicle as the primary player activity and steering well
usually the primary challenge.
• Construct the levels that will test a player’s skill at maneuvering his
vehicle.
● Reward him for his prowess.
● Other challenges, such as shooting or exploring should be
secondary.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Genre –specific Level Design Principles

• Construction and Management Simulations

• Offer an interesting variety of initial conditions and goals.
• Most games start the player with an empty spaces and let the player
to build whatever he likes within the constraints of the game.
• The game can also offers the player an existing or partial
construction and let the player to continue working from there, often
with a goal to achieve, within a certain time limit.
• They usually called scenarios rather than levels.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Genre –specific Level Design Principles

• Adventure Games
• Construct challenges that harmonize with their locations and the
story.
• Adventure games offer much of their entertainment through
exploration and puzzle solving.
• A chapter in an adventure game equivalent to a level.
• Create challenges that harmonize the current level
with the current events in the story.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Genre –specific Level Design Principles

• Artificial Life Games

• Create many interaction opportunities for the creatures in their
environment.
• Most enjoyment comes from watching the simulated creatures in the
game and giving them things to do within their environment.
• The game should offer many opportunities for the
player to interact with the creatures.
• Generally is game design rather than level design.
 GAME LEVEL DESIGN

Genre –specific Level Design Principles

• Puzzle Games
• Give the player time to think.
• Puzzle solving is problem solving
● Some players enjoy solving puzzles
under time pressure, but most don’t.
ALTERNATIVE RESOURCES