Clic The Technology

Posts Tagged ‘leveling’

The physical layout of your map will be heavily influenced by its gameplay type. Single-player levels tend to be linear. If the level is too open, the player doesn’t know which way to go and can become lost. You should design these levels with a flow that leads the player along until he has reached his goal.

Death Match levels tend to be circular. The architecture should be simple and easy to navigate. The player should be able to learn the map quickly and thereafter never be confused about where he is. These levels should have no safe territory where a player can hide out indefinitely. They should have several ways players can double back on each other, along with the requisite hard-to-reach places where expert players can snipe at unsuspecting novices below.

Capture the Flag levels should be balanced, with each team’s home base equally easy to attack and defend. Give special thought to color schemes to help the players know when they are entering enemy territory. In all cases, the look of the level should be internally consistent.

Don’t mix graphical styles within a level, particularly if it is a small map. Although larger maps can contain a series of smaller locations that look different, the style should be consistent within the  boundaries of each location. This constant supply of convincing, coherent detail helps sustain the player’s waking dream as he travels your landscape, totally immersed in the world you have created.

Organize a level or mission around one major premise, whether it is a particular style of gameplay or an unusual goal. Because variety is the spice of life, change the themes and underlying structures of missions as the player goes through the game. Vary the strategies for success from mission to mission. One could be, “Build up your units and make a rush,” the next could be, “Send in a small but powerful unit on a sneak attack,” and a third could be, “Defend the base against an enemy rush.”Mix it up so that the player doesn’t become bored.

Quality here is more important than quantity. If you have to choose between giving the players lots of the same kinds of levels, or fewer levels with a greater variety, choose the latter. Make sure that the player knows what his objectives are for each mission. This can be done either in a cutscene prior to the mission or within gameplay as the mission gets underway. It’s also good to give the player access to a screen with his current status and a simple restatement of his mission.

Create visually distinctive landmarks to keep the player from getting lost as he navigates through your world. It’s especially helpful if some of these landmarks appear as a result of the player’s actions, so he can orient himself if he has to do any backtracking. This applies to both 3D worlds and tiled worlds. Within a level, as within a game, start easy and build up the difficulty as the player goes along. Don’t make the hardest part of the level the first thing he has to do. Ease him into it. Also, avoid the “restore” puzzles that plague adventure and action games. In theory, it should be possible for a player to win a level on his first try, rather than failing repeatedly in order to gain the knowledge he needs to win.

Two hidden problems of single-player level design are how to contain the player in a given area of a level until he has accomplished what you want him to and how to prevent him from returning to that area after he’s done.

The first problem is especially prevalent in open-air levels, where there are no natural barriers to keep the player from moving around. In these levels, the player can sometimes simply run past his opponents, rather than engage them in battle. This will effectively “break” the game, because the player either arrives at the end of the level with a host of bad guys on his tail who are sure to kill him or reaches the end with no challenges and wonders why the game is so short.

There are many solutions here; the key is to be aware of the problem. You can create natural barriers that are destroyed as a byproduct of the player making progress in the level. Or you can provide naturally occurring choke-points in the level geometry that are guarded by mini-boss monsters. The point is to ensure that the player doesn’t get too far too fast.

The second flow control problem is how to close off an area after the player is done with it. There are many reasons for doing this, including better memory management and prevention of player paranoia. If a player cannot return to a given area of the level, he knows that he’s making progress and doesn’t wonder whether he left any tasks unfinished back there. Of course, closing off the area also means that the programmers can free up the memory associated with making everything there work.

Give the player a goal. In too many levels, the player knows only that he needs to keep moving and shooting until the magic word Loading appears, signaling that he has somehow accomplished whatever the level designer had in mind. Make sure that the player knows what his objectives are for each level. You can do this either in a cut scene prior to the level, or within game play when the mission gets under way. It is also a good idea to create a screen the player can always access to get his current status and a simple restatement of his mission.

Have you ever read a strategy guide that seems to be explaining a different game than the one you are playing? It is usually because the author has consulted with the level designers and learned what they intended to do, instead of what they actually presented in the game. Do not let this happen to you. Mission briefings can be presented in whatever manner fits your fiction. In a fantasy game, a ghostly apparition of a wizard can give the player a quest. In a military game, the commanding officer can issue a set of orders and objectives. Just make sure that when the player enters the level, he knows his goal. Do not let him stumble along saving, shooting, dying, and restoring, until he walks through a door that looks like any other and learns that he is done.