Critical Path................................
Even though I am a big proponent of non-linear gameplay, I am also a big fan of a nice
critical path in a level. A critical path gives players a sense of a direction they can use in
order to complete the level. This direction may be a physical direction, such as “head
north” or “head for the rainbow,” or it can be a more ambiguous goal, such as finding a
creature and defeating it or retrieving an important object. Always giving players a pri-
mary goal to accomplish is crucial to making your level playable. Players should have a
goal and, as I discussed, sub-goals that work toward achieving that primary goal.
Players should always be aware of the goal and the related sub-goals, and should always
have a sense of what they can do to progress in the level. Separate optional side-goals
may be less obvious or hidden, but nothing frustrates players more than having no idea
what they are supposed to do. Having a clearly established critical path is a good way to
help prevent players from becoming confused.
Limited Backtracking ..........................
If your game relies on exploration for a large part of its gameplay value, it is probably a
bad idea to make players backtrack through large sections of the level that they have
already explored in order to continue in the game. That is not to say that your level can-
not have branching paths for players to explore. It merely means that each branch
should loop back to the main path without players needing to backtrack along the same
path. If your game is more of a role-playing or adventure game where creating the illu-
sion of reality is important, the necessity of backtracking may be more acceptable.
Grand Theft Auto IIIis certainly an example of a realistic setting resulting in a need for
backtracking, though the game ameliorates the situation by making driving around the
city fun no matter how many times you do it. Certainly in an RTS, sports, or
death-match game, players will be covering the same ground over and over again, but
the appeal of a basketball game orWarCraftis not so tied to exploration asSuper Mario
64 , which does a very good job of eliminating the need for backtracking entirely.
Success the First Time..........................
If most players are able to beat your level the first time they play it, you have probably
made a level that is too easy. Nonetheless, the possibility should exist that players
could make it all the way through your level on the first try. I do not mean, however, that
players could make all of the right choices just by happenstance. Instead, you should
provide enough data to the players that they have a reasonable chance of avoiding all
the obstacles put in their path if they are observant and quick-witted enough. When-
ever players fail in your level, they should feel that they had a fair chance of avoiding
that failure if they had only been more observant or had thought more before they
acted. Nothing frustrates players more than realizing that the only way to make it
through the level is by trial and error combined with blind luck. Of course, your level
can still be hard. Your clues as to what to do can be quite subtle, the monsters to be
defeated can be really strong, or the choices to be made can be truly challenging, but if
players do everything perfectly, they should be able to get through your level the first
time they play it.
Chapter 23: Level Design 465