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Level Design

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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I saw this diagram via Adam Heine's Twitter feed, and it made me sad:
CqFKsxsW8AACHAs.jpg:large


I noticed that the big difference among these is that with each iteration, he has cut down the number of routes through the level. By "expert," there is only a single path through the map. Obviously this is something that everyone has experienced in playing games from the 80s/90s to the present, but I found it pretty interesting to see someone presenting this way (i.e., as an evolution from bad to good, notwithstanding the disclaimer at the top right).
 

Neanderthal

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I've had a lot more fun an exploration in maps like left one than right ones, this is fucking tragic.

Next step is Modron Maze, MCA were a prophet.
 

DramaticPopcorn

Guest
Pretty depressing and highly opinionated agenda-driven bullshit to cull the creativity and standardize conventions for personal comfort of imagination-devoid suit without the gut to experiment.

BTW, what does Uncharted 4 have to do with Multiplayer FPS maps? While at it, I'd like to see him rationalize average location fro Witcher 3 (or even Assassin Creed's) which is a combination of all 4 almost every time on multiple layers.
 
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Load of shit, also every map in CS:GO map looks like the second one more or less, barring the ones that are complete aids. Every map valve touches comes out worse than before so citing recent cs:go maps as good level design is laughable, just look at nuke or cobblestone.
 
Self-Ejected

Repulsive

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Fun, abstract level design, blows boring, linear shit out the water and always will. Blood and Quake 1's level design mops the floor with any of those games with so-called 'Expert' Level Design.
 

tormund

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Penetrating the underrail
IE fuck gameplay, this level is da best because it focuses on telling a story and has an "art budget" behind it.

Funny thing is that games like Blood or Thief had levels that "told stories" and provided a sense of place, and they did so incredibly well while being first and foremost in the service of actual gameplay, but looking at the layouts of some of them would probably make that guy foam on his mouth and fall into coma.
 

ghostdog

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This dipshit doesn't even understand the meaning of level design and has warped its meaning to reflect his own narrow-minded logic. He asks for a multiplayer level and wants a linear Uncharted level that tells a story. He probably doesn't even understand the meaning of the word gameplay and has confused it with QTEs that "tell a story".

He should spend some time playing certain Doom wads, and maybe he'll understand level design and gameplay.
 
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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
What the fuck is wrong with this guy, he's claiming "expert" levels are all about narrative, photorealism, and art when it's just a fucking corridor. Sure I like levels that feel like a physical location, but I'll take an abstract level that is designed around opening up good gameplay options over that any day.
 

Riskbreaker

Guest
Level design is pretty much a dead art as far as vast majority of AAA developers go, and I very much doubt that average journo or "expert" could recognize and appreciate a well crafted level. That image just proves it, I guess.
Give em some really well designed and intricate 90s FPS map, and they'd probably think it a "over-complicated labyrinthine mess" too.
 

Carrion

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As far as multiplayer levels go, the second one is the only one that I could actually see working in a deathmatch or something like Counter-Strike. The first one is just random, the third one is way too simplistic, and the fourth one is too linear (although not as much as the third one — it might be suitable for a slow-paced close-quarters combat game in the vein of Rainbow Six or SWAT, for example, as based on that sketch I do see at least a couple of different ways one could approach the level).

That being said, the fourth one is the most varied in terms of layout, and it looks like it would make the most use of verticality as well. Although there certainly is a very specific appeal in something like, say, Daggerfall's huge randomly generated dungeons that you can actually get lost in (or Daggerfall's huge cities, which actually don't look all that much different from the first picture), thoughtful use of the third dimension alongside a non-formulaic yet logical layout is something that you really don't see enough in games, and it's often what separates a great level from a merely good one. While complexity in itself doesn't equal good level design, good level design usually does include a fair amount of non-linearity, and it's a shame that nowadays a whole lot of time probably goes into figuring out how to prevent the player from leaving the carefully crafted corridor rather than actually creating interesting layouts for the player to explore.
 

Soulcucker

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Jul 22, 2015
Messages
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LOL. Robert Yang an 'expert' on game design. Just read his blog to see how pretentious this guy is or play his 'games' to see how full of shit he is.

maxresdefault.jpg
 

vortex

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MRY, could you give your thoughts of excellent level design and give your guidance?
Is it the same approach with level design when you're making isometric or first person view game?
 
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DraQ

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Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
I saw this diagram via Adam Heine's Twitter feed, and it made me sad:
CqFKsxsW8AACHAs.jpg:large


I noticed that the big difference among these is that with each iteration, he has cut down the number of routes through the level. By "expert," there is only a single path through the map. Obviously this is something that everyone has experienced in playing games from the 80s/90s to the present, but I found it pretty interesting to see someone presenting this way (i.e., as an evolution from bad to good, notwithstanding the disclaimer at the top right).
The key word here is "multiplayer".
In first person multiplayer - implicitly deathmatch - level you need a tight, limited space with defined flow(s) and recognizable and memorable layout that can be effectively controlled by a player in a match with relatively few other players who also vie for control.
In this context something like #1 simply wouldn't work - you would get a bunch of players camping in different spots waiting for someone to get in their sights and a bunch of others running around aimlessly, trying to find each other or the campers - it would be terrible.

Now designing a single player map, especially in an RPG, especially an open world one, is a whole different affair and #1 is no longer a bad or unlikely outcome.
Still, there are few lessons that could be applied there as well:
  • Individual buildings in #1 should probably resemble #4 more than #2 or #3.
  • Internal logic and discernible structure and subsections from #4 can and should be applied recursively on larger locations and finally on gameworld levels which will invariably work better than just plain #1.
  • Internal logic and breaks from neat, grid layout trump room-corridor-room any time.
Things not accounted for include distinct flavours for subsections (which is important to aid memorization and make your stuff non-boring) and z-axis (no, just having stairs somewhere on your single floorplan doesn't really count, that's not even Doom's level of sophistication - single floorplan should autofail WB test).
For bonus points (let's call it Master level) you can also break from grid vertically and include all sorts of structural damage to your architecture to justify it and create unexpected 3D connectivity (holes through the level or accidental ramps and bridges) rather than just using it as window dressing and to plug dead-ends.
If your internal logic (and your engine of choice) won't buckle under the strain you can even go for non-euclidean connectivity, variable gravity vectors and such.

Of course, many aspects of such good design are orthogonal and actual design may vary wildly in quality of its different aspects.
Take Skyrim, for example.
On one level its dungeons are mostly inexcusably terribad linear room-corridor-room affairs. On another level they also feature some nice z-axis and tend to go off the grid in all directions - including vertically.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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MRI, could you give your thoughts of excellent level design and give your guidance?
Is it the same approach with level design when you're making isometric or first person view game?
Assuming you meant MRY...

I'm not a level designer, I'm not even much of a designer, so I'm probably not going to be able to give an interesting answer, but I'll try.

To begin with, I think if you abstract sufficiently, then, yes, isometric and first-person level design is the "same approach" -- but that abstraction is probably something like "make sure that there are multiple paths through a level, that there are portions that are harder to get to and provide some reward for reaching," etc. (Obviously, what kind of game, like RPG vs. strategy vs. shooter, would change even the abstract level considerations. For example, symmetry and/or balance is irrelevant in a single-player map, but very important in some kinds of multiplayer maps.) I think multi-pathing, however, is true of every kind of game I can think of -- everything from F-Zero to Super Mario Bros. to Starcraft to Super Smash Brothers to Skyroads to Gauntlet to Fallout to Doom offers multiple different paths. The only exceptions I can think of are fighting games and space sims, which generally have empty levels. Even adventure games, which typically require the same checklist to be completed, offer you multiple ways to order the items on the list.

But once you're past that level of abstraction, I think the principles start to diverge along multiple axes. You can't have level design independently of ruleset. Very few isometric games have verticality, and of those few, not many do it well. So at a very basic level, you have to ask whether elevation matters, or even more basically, what the movement verbs are. Thus, the design rules for a a Freespace level, a Descent level, a Quake level, and a Doom level are all going to be very different because of how they engage with movement, even though nominally each is a first-person game in which you are moving and shooting enemies (throw Deus Ex and Alpha Protocol in if you want even more divergent examples). Another axis is "realism" -- sometimes maps are meant to evoke real(ish) spaces (Grand Theft Auto or Bloodlines or Ultima VII), and sometimes that kind of realism is not as important to the experience (PS:T or Super Mario World or Skyroads), so you don't worry as much about the "ecology" of a map and so forth. Another axis is "narrative" -- some games are more narratively inclined, and so you care more about designing levels in a way that feeds narrative to the player (typically through choke points with some narrative content), or thematic progression, or whatever. The stronger the narrative component, the more diminished (typically) the map's variety will be.

Also, there's a huge difference between levels where you go from start to end and then go to the next level and open(er) worlds. For example, it's a little strange to talk about Sigil as a "level" -- even though that is one way to describe it -- because it is doing something totally different from level 4-2 in Super Mario Worlds.

Anyway, at a high level of abstraction again, I think a really important thing is that levels, by default, need to inflict attrition on the player-character as he moves through it. The best case against this rule would be one-hit-kill but infinite-life platformers like, say, Super Meat Boy. But even those levels have a very basic form of attrition, namely a time limit. One considerable problem I have with a lot of RPGs is that the attrition is so trivial as to be non-existent -- the only resource being depleted is the player's time. But you want to be draining ammo, HP, food, magic, whatever because the attrition gradient of the level is what shapes the player's choices on the game layer of the game. (There may also be a narrative layer on which the player is making choices, but if those aren't liked to an attrition gradient, then I don't really think we're talking about a game.)

Candidly, there aren't that many games that I immediately think of as having good level design. Obviously Deus Ex and Thief, a great many platformers (Super Mario World, for example), Doom and Descent, there were some great levels in Gladiator (a DOS-era Gauntlet-ish game), I enjoyed Enemy Territory's maps. Meh, I'm sure if I thought about it longer I could come up with more.
 

Severian Silk

Guest
I think level #4 is the best for a singleplayer game. Ideally, on a large map with multiple locations.

Also WTF how can you say #4 is linear? There are two separate buildings and more entrances/exits than #2 and #3. If #3 is like a Quake 3 level, then #4 is like a (singleplayer) Doom 2 level.

Also roguelikes suck.

The only exceptions I can think of are fighting games and space sims, which generally have empty levels.
Level design is important in space sims too. It's one of the reasons that Star Wolves 2 sucks compared to Star Wolves 1. I.e. every level in Star Wolves 2 feels the same compared to the interesting level design of Star Wolves 1.
 
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MRY

Wormwood Studios
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California
Level design is for sure important in space games, but I don't normally think of it as involving maps with paths.
 

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