“Sandbox” style games likeGrand Theft Auto,The Getaway,orTrue Crimeare
interesting in how they combine elements from RPG, strategy, and death-match level
flows. In them, players need to go to different locations to get missions from people,
often covering ground they have traveled previously to get there, much like in an RPG.
And like a strategy game, the action and combat sequences can flow all over the map
depending on where the battle happens to go. Finally, like a death-match map, players
will only start excelling in the game once they have memorized the city streets and are
thereby able to get to locations more quickly.
With the exception of racing games, sports games typically provide a very non-lin-
ear flow to their gameplay. The flow of a basketball game’s levels more closely
resembles a death-match or strategy game’s levels than an action/exploration game’s
maps. Action takes place all over the level or court, with the players’ movement flowing
back and forth across the level, covering the same ground but in unique and unpredict-
able ways. Exploring the level is relatively unimportant, as the shape of the level is
completely simple and typically the entire court or a very large chunk of it is on screen
at once.
In a racing game, players move from a distinct start location to a distinct end loca-
tion. This movement is quite similar to an exploration-oriented action game such as
Doom, with the key differences that typically the race’s start and end locations are the
same (the track loops) and usually the race-path is repeated multiple times before the
level is over. Though there is a good deal of non-linearity in terms of the gameplay and
how players race against their opponents, the level flow is even more linear than in an
action/adventure title. Modern racing games such asProject Gotham RacingorCruisin’
Worldincorporate some of the exploration elements of action/exploration games by
making the levels look visually stunning and varied, making the first time players round
a corner an aesthetically thrilling experience. Older racing games (such as the venera-
blePole Position) relied more on the challenge of navigating the track to entertain
players rather than the thrill of racing through new, fantastic locations. Many more
modern racing games also include alternate paths or shortcuts that players can take for
varied gameplay results. TheSSXgames, which are racing games despite not involving
cars, are particularly good at providing a wide variety of secret paths for players to
explore. The flow is still in the same general direction, but some branching allows play-
ers to concentrate on more than just how tightly they can take a given corner.
From my discussion of these gaming genres and the way that gameplay flows on
their respective levels, one could divide the games into roughly two groups: those with
more linear levels (action/adventure, role-playing, and racing games) and those with
more non-linear, unpredictable gameplay experiences (strategy, sports, and
multi-player death-match games). Of course, that is not to say that the two do not over-
lap. For instance, specificStarCraftlevels do everything to encourage players to play
them in a specific path, especially the small-team indoor levels. Similarly, manySuper
Mario 64maps allow for multiple viable paths players can use to play them through. If
the designer is creative enough in her efforts, the distinction between the two types of
levels can be blurred, which can often lead to more varied and interesting gameplay.
462 Chapter 23: Level Design