Elements of Good Levels..........................
As you design a level, there are a seemingly infinite number of details you must keep in
mind. You must be concerned that you balance the elements of action, exploration, puz-
zle solving, storytelling, and aesthetic appeal. You must work with the artists and
programmers to achieve the effects you want. For 3D levels, you must make sure the
whole level is optimized so that it can run on the target system. And in the worst of situ-
ations you have to deal with unruly level design tools that seem to thwart your every
attempt to make something cool.
Often a level designer will come up with rules of thumb to follow while making a
level, even if she does not write them down. Every designer will have her own list of
“dos” and “don’ts” that she keeps in the back of her mind, and this list can change sig-
nificantly from project to project. Some games will have their own “design rules”
established ahead of time and which the designers can then follow, but there are also
rules that can apply to any project. Here I present a partial list of my own rules, which I
use to attempt to make a level that is stimulating to play.
Players Cannot Get Stuck........................
This should be obvious but is a frequent newbie designer mistake. Players should
never become hopelessly stuck when playing your level. There should be no pits that
can be fallen into but not climbed out of, no objects which, when moved incorrectly, per-
manently block the players’ progress, and no doors that fail to open if players approach
them a certain way. Though this goal may seem perfectly obvious, it will actually con-
sume a large amount of your time as a level designer. Consider a puzzle where players
have a certain amount of dynamite, and that dynamite needs to be used to blow a hole in
a wall so players can progress in the level. What if players use up all their dynamite
blowing up the wrong things? Without any more dynamite, the players are now com-
pletely stuck. Similarly, suppose players need to talk to a particular NPC to get a
particular object. What if, instead of talking to that character, players kill him? Either
the game must end nearly instantly, or there must be some alternate way to progress
through the game. Designing your level in such a way that, whatever players do, they
can still finish the level, takes a lot of thinking and planning. As a level designer, you
must always be asking yourself, “But what if players try it this way?”
Sub-Goals.................................
As the players play a level, they should have understandable sub-goals. Instead of play-
ing through the whole level just trying to get to the exit or accomplish some large goal,
players should be able to recognize that there are various tasks they can accomplish
that contribute to the final goal. A very simple example of this would be the different
keys inDoom. Players know that once they get the blue key they are that much closer
to finishing the level. In an arcade racing game likeSan Francisco Rush, instead of hav-
ing just one finish line per track, most games have multiple “checkpoints” along the
track at which players are given a time bonus and informed of how well they are doing.
In an RPG, players may be working to defeat an evil force that is tormenting the land,
but along the way they are able to go on various sub-quests for villagers who need their
Chapter 23: Level Design 463