万字长文，Toby gard解构动作冒险游戏的关卡设计

夜行的猫仔

作者：Toby gard

简介–授权

不同人会采取不同方法去授权设计责任。

我便遇到过一些没有主见的创意总监，仅仅只是过滤团队的理念。

我也遇到过一些基于自己的想法而创造了一张粗糙图像，并在向团队成员进行描述后将设计任务授权给他们。如此便会导致团队很难创造出他所期待的“正确”解决方法。

比起寻找具有读心术的设计师，更有效的方法便是通过创造性去表达他们想要的，以及灵活性所在，如此他们的团队便会在避免迷失于创造性的前提下掌握如何全心投入创造中。

我相信，当我们能够把坚定的核心理念传达给团队（游戏邦注：基于整体团队的输入和反馈），并基于明确的参数授权责任时，我们便能获得有效的平衡。

本系列文章的第一部分将描述这一过程的第一阶段，即基于我所找到的最成功的方法。

该过程尝试着为一个关卡团队平衡创造性自由与所有权，并通过定义需要先想出哪些细节并传达给团队，以及基于成功标准去授权哪一部分内容等保持一个结构性观点。

整个过程描述的步骤对于独立设计师也同样有效，而不管他们期待的是怎样的授权程度。

因为每个项目拥有其自身的需求和团队结构，所以这一过程不可能直接适用于你身上。但是有许多理念可以用于任何基于故事的游戏中。

阶段1 关卡流程图

关卡设计的观点交流第一步便是传达关卡流程图。

高级关卡设计计划的制定应该遵循以下4大资源：

动机——我正在这里做什么？

与书中的任何场景或章节一样，一个关卡的冲突和解决方法应该源自主角的动机。这也是为何我们需要明确地告知玩家角色动机的主要原因，否则他们便会在游戏中迷失方向。

这些动机将转变成游戏目标，如“找到那个杀死你爱人的男人”或更简单的“杀死10个boss中的5个”。更强大的目标是那些角色和玩家动机相一致的内容。

如果你想要创造这种一致性的话，简单地传达角色的目的或动机还不够。你也需要让玩家真正感到这一目的的重要性。

举个例子来说吧，比起通过过场动画去传达主角讨厌boss敌人，并让玩家知道他们只有杀死boss才能前进，直接给予玩家厌恶boss的理由更能有效地传达这种一致性。

如果boss在玩家给予了信任之后转而背叛了他，或者夺取了玩家的某些东西（如通过杀死玩家所关心的NPC），那么玩家和角色便都有理由去恨boss了。

因为设置玩家动机需要投入一定的时间，所以设计师总是很难在一个开放式过场动画中将玩家动机与角色动机维系在一起。

通常你总是没有其它选择，只能在一开始传达角色动机，如此玩家只能在想法上与角色维系在一起，而非情感。

为了贯穿游戏加强这种一致性，我们必须让“我想要让女朋友复生”的动机与玩家想要“杀死巨人”的目的维系在一起。

如果目的与动机并没有直接关系（例如，你花了大量时间只是为了完成杀死无数老鼠的任务），如此玩家便会忽略体验背后的意义，而他们与主角动机间的一致性便会不断侵蚀他 们想要继续游戏的兴趣。

情感/体验主题

在有关关卡设计的第一阶段，你必须通过预先头脑风暴而选择强大和有趣的设置组件与情感事件，并将其整合到游戏中。

你将围绕着这些内容去填充剩下的关卡设计。你可以在这些时候基于玩家的想法去定义游戏，重要的是它们将支持或推动你的故事。

设置组块是复杂的行动导向型理念，如“逃离燃烧的建筑”或“找到并去除四个炸弹”。设置组件是行动类游戏的基本建筑组块，就像动作电影中那样。在此我们所面对的挑战是 创造之前未被实践过多次的设置组件。

控制情感的事件是你的游戏的核心—-例如寻找被废弃的村庄中的幸存者，当你进入窃盗城中只发现有关他们命运的一个骇人听闻的答案。

如果处理得当的话，情感事件比设置组件更具让人印象深刻，但是因为它们对于玩家和角色间的一致性有过高的要求，所以便导致我们很难创造这类事件。

柱子

游戏之柱会定义玩家能够做的一些基本内容，所以为了将设置组件和情感场景整合到关卡中，他们必须与玩家的能力相匹配，否则便会让玩家感到混乱。

如果在完成所有关卡流程图后才确定游戏之柱真正完结的话，我们便能看到最大程度的灵活性。而这只会在选取一些真正发生在玩家身上的事物的过程中才会发生，你将因此发现 玩家真正的能力，以及你该如何灵活地去执行它们。

除了不能从开发角度为每个设置组件创造全新能力外，它们也不会倾向于玩家，除非你包含像骑马和钩编等内容，如此这些能力便会在一开始出现于游戏之柱中。

虚构

不管你正在创造怎样的游戏，都存在一个与主角的故事几乎一样重要的故事，你需要谨慎对待；而这便是关卡本身。不管玩家是在经历外星人入侵还是尝试着去解决一个谋杀之谜 ，他们的沉浸程度都是取决你对于维持虚构内容的承诺。

关卡设计中会遇到的最常见的问题便是基于一套参数而相对宽松地定义一组挑战，然后尝试着去装扮它们。最终这只创造出一些牵强，乏味且容易被忘记的关卡。

尽管许多设计师提出了异议，即他们感觉会被虚构方法所束缚，但现实是当你决定遵守关卡的虚构性时，你便会发现自己设计出了会让玩家和你感到惊讶的空间和事件。

我将在第二阶段进一步研究这一点，但是现在，我们需要做的便是确保能在环境（游戏邦注：在虚构内容上能够保持一致性）下定义整体的关卡流程。

关卡流程元素

有些人为自己的关卡创造了全部流程表，但我认为这太过约束了，并且关于基本的空间布局也不能提供足够的信息。

我更喜欢混合了图解和动点进度表的关卡流程。

我并不追求流程图多详细，而希望它能够定义关卡的概略；这便是我所强调的流程图的核心。

我发现，通常在下一个阶段的时候团队会添加至少一半的最终关卡目标，所以保持这些目标的简单化便非常重要，因为那时侯关卡的难度至少会翻两倍。如果你不能在一页范围内 调整流程图，那就说明它过长了。

基于你所创造的游戏类型，你所包含的元素类型也会有所不同，但你的目标总是一样的：就是确保它足够简单。

在这个例子中我使用了如下方法：

关卡刺激

我是以此去召唤玩家来到某一领域。它们不仅会作为图解的位置，同时也是在脚本事件发生时给予玩家的关键信息。

玩家回应

这是玩家所做的事。我们必须清楚地将这些内容传达给玩家。

锁

锁就像一个“坚固的门”，限制着玩家在关卡中的前进，直到他们能够满足某些标准。（为了该墓地我将“软弱的门”整合到玩家回应中。）

钥匙

这是关于世界或玩家角色的状态改变，将能够打开任何地方的“锁”。

例子——《光晕：战斗进化》

《Campaign 2》、《Flawless Cowboy》和《Reunion Tour》

Halo(from gamasutra)

这一页图解只能描写2个需要1个小时完成的关卡（一个战斗）。

基于这一图解你应该包含一些注释去描述每个元素背后的意图，并参考它们所获得的4个资源。（这是关于你如何为关卡团队定义成功标准。）

动机

杀死Covenant。在Campaign 1中看到人类舰队和Pillar of Autumn被粉碎会提升玩家的仇恨，让他们愿意更长时间待在游戏中只为了杀死Covenant。

柱子

这包括基于三人驾驶/射击Warthog游戏玩法，并与AI军队协作而向玩家呈现他们最初的游戏体验。

主题

参考电影和其它游戏是一种快速传达游戏主题的好方法。《星河战队》便是一个很棒的例子，即能够唤醒那些在外星世界中被外星敌人所压倒的士兵们。

虚构

关卡是与推断出许多有关持续战争的大型故事和小规模独立故事的后期维系在一起：

被摧毁的逃生杆及其躯壳并未幸存下来，来自太空大战的残骸滑过了天际。每一个坠落点都代表着士兵Master Chief短暂而绝望的求生故事。

完成

当完成关卡流程图后，你还离下一个阶段很远。

为了评估关卡流程图，你需要证明整体游戏的机制。只有当它们一起出现时，你才能判断它们是否彼此适合，并清楚跌宕的游戏玩法是否能够从游戏的开始持续到最后。

将其罗列在墙上，你将看到玩家是在哪里改变了方向，在哪里不同的事件顺序能够创造更棒的解咒，以及哪里的情感事件因为出现得过早而阻碍了玩家和角色的一致。

基于游戏创造一个优秀故事的秘诀便是将玩家的行动当成推动故事发展的引擎。

《Ico》和《旺达与巨像》便拥有电子游戏中最成功的故事，尽管有些人认为故事元素并不重要。但事实却并非如此。故事无处不在，因为玩家就是生活在故事中。

《Ico》是关于逃脱与保护。每当你设法诱导Yorda从城堡中逃离时，你朝着自由前进的故事便会不断发展着。而在《旺达与巨像》中，贯穿游戏的英雄将为了拯救爱人而逐渐牺牲 自己的生命以及每个巨像的生命。

killing Colossi(from gamasutra)

保护女人并杀死巨像。正是玩家的行动塑造了故事，减轻了过场动画的负担并让故事在玩家心中变得更加重要。

总结

关卡流程图是关卡设计与团队的首个关键交流平台。

通过以下元素去创建关卡流程图：

*角色动机

*情感和体验式设置组件

*基于游戏之柱所定义的玩家行动

*环境自身的虚构性

*使用最小的元素去绘制图表，并代表主要的事件。

*确保图表不会超过1页。

*确保你能够通过玩家行动推动故事的发展。

那些关卡具有令人惊奇的外观。我认为应该笔直的动作关卡可能具有许多令人困惑的小通道，许多关卡可能提示超出当前关卡的想法。

评估整体情况

为了组织他们的反馈，创意主管必须评估大气层有关卡计划。因为关卡可能非常复杂，所以最好能制作一个整个游戏的简化展示版，这样你就可以估计体验的节奏和情感氛围的一 致性了。

提取机制

第一步是确关卡团队相屋的所有这些特例，并更新关卡计划。不可避免的，有些特例可能非常不错：

Ken Kong落入30层的电梯竖井，他在半空中施展功夫，直到他身下的僵尸尸体堆得足够高时，他就是站在尸堆上，免于死亡。

这听起来很了不得，但这个战斗系统不可能容纳这种“下落战斗”机制，所以关卡团队认为应该做成过场动画。

在许多其他关卡中，Ken Kong必须破坏一些墙体，关卡团队提议加入不同的McGuffin（游戏邦注：这是书、电影中用来推动情节发展的对象或事件）使他能做到，比如允许他使用 身边的一个不平衡的重物来破坏墙体。

正这这一系列想法产生了精致原创的游戏机制，进而使你的项目与其他人的区别开来。通过促进具有灵活性、可以扩展到核心机制中的想法，我们可以制作出更丰富、更连贯的体 验。

例如：

破坏墙体如何成为可重复使用的机制？是否需要消耗品，或是现成的技能？升级这种技能需要什么条件？它与其他玩家能力是否产生协同作用。

假设，我们可以把破坏墙体与新幸存者类型——一个爆破专家相结合。这个家伙随身带着一种具有多种用途的炸弹，但当他被僵尸攻击时，他就会引爆炸弹——可能对你自己一方 造成很大伤害。可以用一些标准的“炸弹携带者”和/或可以用于若干关卡的敌人，做成一种有趣的风险/奖励机制。

也许这种“下落点头”还可以用在几个关卡中，但看起来更像迷你游戏，而不是新机制。虽然这个想法有趣，但问题是，你能把这种玩法做出足够的深度，使整个游戏中接连出现 三四次“下落战斗”变得合情合理吗？这似乎像是大投入换小成果，但如果我们能做成，效果应该会相当不错。

这些机制通常，因为它们不是出于根据竞争产品的盒子标记而被强制放在游戏设计中的，而是通过探究它的独特主题和深入探索它的世界而被有组织地发现的。

如果我们已经把新机制整合起来，并且驳回或注意到所有新设置，我们就可以让合适的角色融入这个定义得更加清楚的世界中，收集必须反馈给关卡团队的主要信息。

玩法类型

大部分游戏都会混合使用元素。例如，FPS可能包含70%的行走射击和30%的交通工具战斗。

如果游戏中的所有关卡具有完全相同的玩法混合模式，那么玩家很快就会觉得无聊。但如果绝大部分关卡要求玩家行走，再用少数几个允许使用交通工具的关卡作为点缀，那么就 会使整个体验更新鲜，从而保持玩家的兴趣。

通过检查游戏过程的玩法类型混合，你可以找出体验太过平淡的地方。

一款持续保持玩家兴趣的游戏的例子就是《半条命2》。几乎第一个关卡都有新的操作主题，比如新武器、新交通工具或新敌人，玩家体验大约每30分钟就会发生一次明显的变化。

案例：《Kung Fu Zombie Killer》

zombie killer(from gamasura)

我们以幻想游戏《Kung Fu Zombie Killer》为例，详细地分析一下你所拯救的幸存者类型对它的玩法变化的影响。

医生，你可以设计这样一个关卡，要求玩家医治受伤的幸存者。

叉车司机，你可以设计这样一个关卡，要求玩家把重物运送到某个地点。

工程师，你可以设计一个带有传统的谜题元素的关卡。

战士，在这个关卡里，你的战士伙伴贡献了大部分的战斗力。

……

我们假设以下地点就是关卡的场景：

道场

医院

建筑工地

军事基地

发电站

警局

超市

市政厅

大学校园

电影院

电视台

办公大楼

我们从故事中可知，游戏必须从Ken所在的道场开始，在Ken救jenna126xyz的电影院结束。

我们的游戏目标中有80%是战斗，20%是谜题，排列如下：

chart1(from gamasutra)

但在细节化阶段，有两件事发生了。（发生变化的事可能更多，但我们在这里只简单地说两件事）

首先，有人想到可以在幸存者类型中加入教师，教师可以通过讲课使僵尸入睡，这就改变了大学校园中的玩法，加入更多谜题元素。

第二，有人提议把电影院改进电影工作室，这样僵尸和幸存者就可以根据像西部片或哥拉斯之类的老套电影来安排了。大家对这个想法感到兴奋，并据此想到了一些非常疯狂的机 制，足以把这个场景分成两个关卡。

结果，我们就看到以下有点儿不平衡的玩法，且关卡太多了：

chart2(from gamasutra)

我们想到的机制数量很多，几乎足够给每一个关卡分配一个新机制。我们调整了关卡，即删除超市和把发电场往前移，做出了更好的玩法节奏：

chart3(from gamasutra)

仍然有改进的空间；我们可以给市政厅关卡中加入新的生存者类型，也可以换成其他东西。

情绪图

在游戏过程中，你想让玩家体验到各种情绪。主角可能经历暗恋、复仇、悲伤和愤怒，等等。这些情绪性事件是值得追踪的，但不如整体情绪基调或者你希望玩家体验到的情绪那 么重要。

我所谓的“情绪”的概念是，可以传达给玩家的基本情绪。所以，惊慌、害怕、恐惧、敬畏和兴奋就属于这一类，而更高级的概念上的情绪主题如复仇、嫉妒或虚无主义就不属于 这一类。

生成情绪图有两个目的。除了用于评估关卡顺序和内容是否与玩家的情绪历程产生互动作用，更重要的是，作为使整个开发团队一致地以创造整体体验为目标的基本工具。

例如，假设Ken Kong经历的故事是这样的：

Ken在城中一路战斗，为了拯救自己心爱的人，但战斗拖延他太久了，当他终于见到她时，她已经变成僵尸了。

如果我把情绪如表示如下：

笨拙-闹剧-渐强的欢喜-彻底的喜剧

1、美术风格必须是明快的

2、动画通常是夸张的、风格化的

3、音乐和声音往往是快节奏的，滑稽的

4、UI元素可以设计得随意一些

通过准确地定义情绪，可以引导整个团队朝着你想要的方向设计和制作。例如，“渐强的欢喜”意味着基调渐强，也就是音乐强度走高，动画更加夸张，节奏更加欢快。

虽然你可能以为《Kung Fu Zombie Killer》的基调可能被定义为“滑稽的”，但它的表述对整个开发过程具有重大影响。

例如，如果我把整个游戏的情绪图如定义如下：

惊慌-恐惧-越来越惊恐-悲剧

游戏中的方方面面都会被这个情绪图完全改变：

1、场景更昏暗，关卡的光源是闪烁不定的，剧情令人越来越不安。

2、动画往往是写实的，且避免任何可能显得可笑的动作出现。

3、音乐和声音效果会令人感到焦虑。

4、UI元素偏向写实风格，且不显眼。

相同的游戏设计，但两种情绪图产生了完全不同的游戏体验。当整个团队都接受这种情绪图，并且认真地把它融入他们制作的每一个元素和每一个决定中，那么这些情绪就能成功 地传达给玩家。

但是，通常情况是，游戏应该传达什么样的情绪或基调、玩家在某个时刻应该体验什么样的情绪，团队中的各名成员对此的理解都会稍稍不同。所以，当开发团队每个成员都在游 戏中传达稍有不同的情绪信息时，为什么那么多游戏都不能感动玩家，也就不足为奇了。

情绪图可以是如上述那么简单的四个阶段，或者也可以详细地把若干情绪片段放进各个关卡中。记住，没有剧情的故事基本上只有一种情绪，而恐怖游戏通常在渐强的紧张和彻底 恐慌之间起伏振荡。

当你的玩法类型和情绪图都确定后，你应该看到如下关卡计划：

chart4(from gamasutra)

在我们的案例中，我们的游戏后期有节奏较慢的谜题关卡，我们希望玩家在那些关卡中体验“渐强的欢喜”。通过重新调整关卡顺序，或把一个关卡的设想转移给另一个关卡，可 以使情绪目标更加突出：

chart5(from gamasutra)

幸运地是，《Kung Fu Zombie Killer》的关卡顺序是非常灵活的，但大部分游戏并不是如此。在某些情况下，答案是，反馈给关卡团队，指导他们如何把情绪和玩法更好地融合起 来。

虽然以上例子可能不是最好的顺序，或最好的情绪图，但我要表达的重点是，迫使自己检验整个计划，以便根据各个关卡在整体体验中的地位给出反馈。

网格模型和原型

下一步是在3D软件中制作关卡模型。我建议这一步由美工来做，而不是设计师，如果你希望做出来的空间是可信有趣的话。应该用网格模型验证计划的关卡在当前的技术和生产条 件下，是否能达到理想的效果。

因为这些关卡是原型，所以最终效果必然会与计划稍有出路。在整个模型和原型阶段，设计师应该根据美工修改计划，主管必须不断更新游戏进度表，并且确认关卡与情绪图的情 境相符。

通过继续抽取从网格模型阶段产生的新机制，并做好随时再次准备调整关卡顺序，你可以在不约束关卡制作人员的创意的情况下使游戏市场计划保持平衡。

最后的计划

通过构建网格模型而获得的信息应该能明显地改进游戏设计。

最后的情绪图将体现所有资源创作。

新机制已明确并插入所有相关关卡中。

关卡已重新排序并产生理想的节奏和情绪。

薄弱关卡计划已被删除。

玩家技能已做出原型，并定义了最后的指标。

一旦所有关卡的原型都做完了，那么已经修饰好的关卡就可以作为样本，给制作阶段提供非常扎实的基础。

相关拓展阅读：篇目1，篇目2（本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao）

Action Adventure Level Design, Part 1

by Toby gard

Intro – Delegation

Different people have different approaches to delegating design responsibilities.

I have seen creative directors who seem to have no vision of their own but merely act as filters through which their team’s ideas are strained.

I have also seen creative directors who form a rough image of what they want in their heads and then delegate the design to their team after loosely describing it to them. Inevitably the team then repeatedly fail to deliver his expected “right” solution.

A better approach than searching for mind-reading designers, is for the creative leads to express clearly both what they want and where the flexibility is, so that their team can know how to take ownership without getting lost in the creative wilds.

I believe that balance is achieved when an unwavering core vision is delivered to the team (based on the whole team’s input and feedback) and then responsibilities are delegated with clearly defined parameters for success.

This first article describes stage 1 of a process that does just that, based on the methods that I have found the most successful.

The process attempts to balance to a healthy amount of creative freedom and ownership for a level team, while keeping a structured vision in place by defining what details are essential to work out first and communicate to the team and what parts are better to be delegated with success criteria.

The steps that the entire process describes can be just as useful for an individual designer regardless of the level of delegation expected to occur.

Since every project has its own needs and team structure, this process is unlikely to translate exactly for you. However, many of the concepts can be adapted for just about any story-centric game.

Stage 1 Level Flow Diagrams

The first step in the clear communication of vision for level design is delivering the Level Flow Diagram.

There are four sources from which the high level design plan should be drawn:

Motivation – What am I doing here?

Like any good scene or chapter from a book, the conflict and resolution of a level should be born from the main character’s motivations. This is why the character’s motivations should always be clear to the player or they will feel lost and directionless.

These motivations translate into game objectives such as “find the man who killed your lover” or more simply, “kill Boss 5 of 10″. The strongest objectives are ones where character and player motivations are in alignment.

It is not enough to simply state the objective or motivation of a character if you want to create alignment. You also need to make it matter to the player if you want them to become invested in it.

For instance, showing through cutscenes that the main character hates a boss enemy, while letting the player know they must kill that boss to progress, results in a much weaker alignment than giving the player reason to hate that boss enemy.

If that boss enemy betrays the player after the player has come to trust him or if he takes something from the player (for instance by killing an NPC that the player has come to care about) then the player and the character will both have a real reason to hate him.

The time it takes to setup player motivation is why it is so hard to align player motivation and character motivation in an opening cutscene.

Often you have no choice but to state the character motivations right at the beginning, in which case the player will only have an intellectual rather than emotional alignment with him or her.

To strengthen that alignment through the game, the motivation “I want to bring my girlfriend back to life” must be completely linked to the player objective “Kill the Colossus.”

If the objectives are not directly related to the motivation (for example, if you spend most of your time being waylaid by endless rat killing quests) then the player will lose sight of the meaning behind their experience and their alignment with the main character’s motivation will erode along with their interest in continuing to play.

Emotional / Experiential themes

It is during this first phase of the level design that you must choose which of the powerful and interesting set pieces and emotional events that came from the whole team during preproduction brainstorms will make it into the game.

These are the high points around which you will fill in the rest of the level design. They are the moments that will define your game in the player’s mind and it is crucial that they support or drive your story.

The set pieces are high-concept action-oriented ideas such as “escape the burning building” or “find and defuse the four bombs.” Set pieces are the basic building blocks for an action heavy game, just as they are for action movies. The challenge is in creating set pieces that haven’t been done a dozen times before.

The emotionally charged events are the heart of your game — i.e. looking for survivors of a deserted village, only to find a shocking and disturbing answer to their fates as you enter the town hall.

Emotional events have the potential to be more memorable than a set pieces if handled well, but they too require the building of player and character alignment, which makes them harder to pull off.

Pillars

The game pillars define the basic things the player can do, so to integrate the cool set pieces and emotional scenes into the level, they must be compatible with the player abilities or they will feel anachronous.

The most flexibility will come if the game pillars aren’t considered final until all the Level Flow Diagrams have been completed. It is only during the process of picking the things that will actually happen to the player, that you will learn what the player abilities really ought to be and how flexibly you will need to implement them.

For instance, if the game is about a jet skiing hacker, then it would be inappropriate to build a set piece around horseback crocheting. Doing so would have to rely heavily either on cutscenes and (shudder) quicktime events or would require specific controls, interface elements and abilities.

Apart from being inefficient from a development standpoint to create new abilities for each set piece, they would be also be un-ramped for the player unless you included several such horse riding and crocheting sections, in which case those abilities should have been in the pillars in the first place.

Fiction

Regardless what sort of game you are making there is a story that is almost as important to consider as the main character’s; that of the level itself. Whether the player is experiencing an alien invasion, or trying to solve a murder mystery, their level of immersion is almost entirely dependent on your commitment to preserving fiction.

The most common mistake made in level design is defining a set of challenges loosely based on a manufactured set of parameters and then trying to set dress them to look like something. This inevitably results in unconvincing, bland and forgettable levels.

Despite many protestations from designers who feel shackled by a fiction-heavy approach, the reality is that when you resolve to respect the fiction of a level you inevitably find yourself designing spaces and events that surprise not just the player, but often yourself as well.

I will go into this in detail in the second stage of level development called “Building Through Fiction” but for now, all we need is the commitment to ensure that our overall level flow is being defined in a context that can be made fictionally consistent.

So no windsurfing on the moon — however much fun that may sound.

Level Flow Elements

Some people make full flow charts of their levels, but I tend to think that’s excessively restrictive and not informative at all regarding basic spacial layout.

I prefer a level flow that resembles hybrid between a schematic diagram and a simple beat sheet.

The goal is not to be exhaustive, but to define the skeleton of the level; the core of it.

On average I find that at least half of the final level goals will actually be added by the team during the next stage, so it’s important to keep these simple because the level will at least double in complexity from here. If you can’t fit the flow on one page, then it is probably too long.

The types of elements that you would include will be different depending on the type of game you are making, but the goal is always the same; keep it simple.

In this example I used the following:

Level Stimulus

I use these to call out the player’s arrival at an area. They serve as the locations on my schematic but also the critical information pieces given to player, during scripted events etc.

Player Response

The things the player does. These are generally objectives that have been clearly communicated to the player.

Locks

Locks are the “hard gates” that restrict forward progress in the level until a certain set of criteria are met. (I’m lumping “soft gates” into Player Response for the purposes of this.)

Keys

These are status changes either of the world or of the player character that will lead to opening a ‘lock’ somewhere.

Example – Halo: Combat Evolved

Campaign 2, Flawless Cowboy and Reunion Tour

This single page schematic actually describes two levels (one campaign) that takes about an hour to complete.

Along with this diagram you would include notes that describe the intention behind each element and directly references the four sources from which they were derived. (This is how you define the success criteria for the level team.)

Motivation

Kill the Covenant. Seeing the human fleet and the Pillar of Autumn being shredded in Campaign 1 gives the player enough animosity to last for a game’s worth of Covenant killing.

Pillars

This would include the focus on introducing the player their first experience with the three-man driving / gunning Warthog gameplay, and the cooperation with AI troops.

Themes

Referencing films and other games is a good way to quickly communicate theme. Starship Troopers might be a good example to evoke the feeling of soldiers being overwhelmed by an alien enemy on an alien world.

Fiction

The level is teaming with touches that infer a great deal about both the larger story and the smaller scale individual stories of the ongoing war:

Destroyed escape pods and the bodies of those that did not survive the landing litter the landscape, while debris from the space battle overhead fall through the sky. Each of the pod crash sites suggests the short desperate survival stories of the soldiers Master Chief meets there.

Finishing up

Once a Level Flow Diagram is done, you are still a long way from moving onto the next stage, the handoff to the team.

To evaluate a Level Flow Diagram you need to have done the whole game’s worth. Only when they are all side by side can you can see how well they fit with each other and how the ebb and flow of gameplay will move from the start to the end of the game.

Put them all up on a wall, and you will see where the player is being sidetracked, where a different order of events would make for a better rhythm and where emotional events are happening too early in a game for player and character alignment to have occurred.

The secret to making a great story based game is to make the actions of the player be the engine that drives the story, not the other way around.

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are among the most successful stories in video games, yet many say the story elements were minimal. That’s not true. The story was everywhere, because the player lives it.

Ico was about escape and protection. Every time you managed to coax Yorda closer to escaping from the castle, the story of your struggle for freedom progressed. In Shadow of the Colossus, throughout the game the hero slowly sacrifices not just his own life but the lives of each colossi, in his mad quest to resurrect his love.Protecting a girl and Killing Colossi. The player actions are shaping the story taking the burden off the cutscenes and making the story matter to the player.

Summary

Level Flow Diagrams are the first key communication of Level Design intent to the team.

Build Level Flow Diagrams from:

Character motivations

Emotional and experiential set pieces

Player actions as defined in the game pillars

The environment’s own fiction

Use minimal elements to draw the diagram, and represent only the main events.

Keep it to one page.

Ensure you are driving story through player action

Action Adventure Level Design: Pacing, Content, and Mood

by Toby gard

By the end of the process described in the last article — building through fiction — you will most likely have a mixture of paper maps, written stories, detailed flowcharts, concept art and possibly some 3D mockup spaces, depending on how each level team prefers (or has been instructed) to represent their plan.

Those levels will have taken shape in surprising and unexpected ways. Levels that we had assumed to be straightforward action levels may have revealed rich veins for puzzles, and many levels are likely to have prompted ideas that fall outside of the current game mechanics.

Evaluating the Big Picture

To structure their feedback, the creative leads need to validate all level plans in relation to each other. Because the levels are likely to be pretty complex, it is useful to create a simplified representation of the whole game so that you can assess the pacing and emotional consistency of the experience.

Extraction of Mechanics

The first step we need to take is to identify all of these special case interactions and ideas that the level teams have come up with while fleshing out the level plans. Inevitably they will be some of the coolest in the game:

Ken Kong falls down a 30 story lift shaft, doing frantic mid-air kung-fu until there is a pile of zombie bodies beneath him thick enough for him to survive the drop.

It sounds awesome, but the fight system simply cannot accommodate this “fall fighting” mechanic, so the level team has suggested it as a cutscene.

In a couple of other levels, Ken Kong has to destroy some walls and the level teams have proposed different McGuffins to allow him to do this, such as a convenient, precariously balanced heavy object that will break through the wall if triggered.

It is this list of ideas that can produce the neat and original game mechanics that will set your project apart from everyone else’s. By promoting ideas that have the flexibility to be expanded into the core mechanics and peppering them throughout the game, we can create a richer more coherent overall experience.

For example:

How could destroying walls become a reusable mechanic? Would it require a consumable, or is it a readily available ability? How rich of a vein is it to be tapped for more applications? Does it have synergy with other player abilities?

Let’s say that we can integrate destroying walls with a new survivor type, a demolitions expert, who carries around explosives that can be put to all sorts of uses, but who also explodes when attacked by a zombie — potentially taking out a large proportion of your crowd. This could make for an interesting risk/reward mechanic and with some standard “explodable” barriers and/or enemies could be used in several levels.

Perhaps the “fall fighting” could also be used on several levels, but this seems more like a mini-game than a new mechanic. While the idea is interesting, the question is, could you make the gameplay deep enough to justify three or four “fall fighting” sequences throughout the game? It potentially seems like a large investment for too small a gain, but if we could make it work, it would be really cool.

These mechanics are generally gold, because they were not forced into the game design from a desire to tick boxes based on competitive products, but were discovered organically through an exploration of its unique themes and the thoughtful exploration of its world.

Once we have integrated the new mechanics and rejected or noted all the new set pieces, we will have adapted the character to live in this more clearly defined world and gathered a major part of the information needed to give feedback to the level teams.

Gameplay Types

Most games have a basic mixture of elements. For instance, an FPS might have 70 percent shooting on foot and 30 percent vehicle combat.

If every level in the game had exactly that mixture of gameplay, it would get dull for the player pretty quickly. But if you have levels that are entirely on foot, interspersed with a few levels that are predominantly or entirely involving vehicles, then they will act as palate cleansers, changing up the experience enough to keep players interested.

By looking at the mix of gameplay types over the course of the game, you can isolate points where the experience might be too flat.

A great example of a game that keeps the player constantly interested is Half-Life 2. Almost every level has a new central theme, whether it’s a new weapon, a new vehicle or a new type of enemy, your experience changes dramatically every thirty minutes or so.

Example: KFZK

Let’s carry on with the imaginary game Kung Fu Zombie Killer, discussed in depth the last installment. The variety of gameplay in that design comes from the types of survivors that you rescue.

With doctors, you could have a level where your goal is to heal injured survivors.

With forklift truck drivers, you could have a level where heavy equipment has to be taken to a particular location in order to progress.

With engineers, you could have levels that included traditional puzzle elements.

With soldiers, you could have a level where your crowd actually does most of the fighting for you.

And so on.

Let’s assume these were the locations we settled on for the levels:

Dojo

Hospital

Building site

Army base

Power station

Police station

Supermarket

Town hall

College campus

Cinema

TV station

Office block

We know from the story that the game has to start in Ken’s Dojo and that it has to end with camera men filming Ken as he rescues jenna126xyz.

We have goal mix of 80 percent fighting, 20 percent puzzles for the whole game and we had ordered things like this:

But during the detailing phase two things happened. (More likely a massive number of things would have changed, but let’s keep it relatively simple.)

First, someone came up with a really cool teacher survivor who can put zombies to sleep by lecturing them, which changes the gameplay mix at the college to involve more puzzles.

Second, someone has proposed changing the cinema into a film studio, whereby the zombies and the survivors can be based on clichés like Wild West or Godzilla films. People are very excited about this idea and enough crazy mechanics have come from it to justify potentially splitting it into two levels.

Consequently things are now looking a little less balanced and we have one too many levels:

(For full chart, please click on image)

We have found enough new mechanics that we can nearly introduce a new mechanic every level. By cutting the supermarket and moving the power station a bit earlier we can adjust the level order to create a better gameplay rhythm:

(For full chart, please click on image)

This can still be improved; we can look to either find a new survivor type that can be added to the town hall level, or we can try to replace it with something else that gives us more opportunities to do so.

Mood Map

There are potentially a host of emotions you will want the player to experience over the course of the game. The main character may experience things like unrequited love, revenge, sadness, and anger. These sorts of emotional events are important to track but they are not as important as the overall emotional tone or mood that you want the player to experience.

By “mood”, I mean a basic emotional concept that can be passed to the audience. So panic, fear, trepidation, awe, and excitement would be considered moods, while higher order conceptual emotional themes such as revenge, jealousy, or nihilism would not be.

Generating the mood map has two purposes. It is used to assess that the level order and content will not interfere with the emotional journey of the player but more critically it is a fundamental tool for aligning the whole development team towards creating a holistic experience.

For instance, let’s say that the story of Ken Kong will go like this:

Ken fights his way across the city saving the loved ones of his crush, but it takes him so long that by the end when he reaches her, she has been bitten and become a zombie herself.

If I define the mood map like this:

Kick-arse awesomeness – farcical chaos – mounting triumph – dark comedy

Art will keep things bright and well lit.

Animation will tend towards outrageous over the top stylized action.

Music and sound effects will tend towards fast-paced and comical.

Designers will feel free to be more game-y in UI game design decisions.

By defining the moods specifically over time you will guide the whole team more precisely than you might imagine. For instance “mounting triumph” implies a growing crescendo. It is likely to encourage a ratcheting up of music intensity, increasingly outrageous level end victory animations, and a general tendency to try to up the pacing each level.

While you probably assumed that the tone of KFZK would be defined as something like “zany”, the act of stating it over time has a dramatic impact on the whole development.

For instance, if I instead define the mood map for the whole game like this:

Panic – horror – increasing trepidation – tragedy

Every aspect of the game will be completely changed by this mood map:

Art will create darker dirtier spaces; they will light the levels with flickering pools of light and dress it with increasingly disturbing stories.

Animation will tend towards realism and will avoid any movements at might be construed as funny.

Music and sound effects will be disturbing.

Designers will try to keep UI and other design elements realistic and invisible.

With exactly the same game design, these two mood maps would generate utterly different gaming experiences. When the whole team embraces the mood map and diligently tries to express it in all the assets and creative decisions they make, the mood will be successfully instilled into the player.

What normally happens, though, is that every team member has a slightly different idea of what mood or tone the game should be creating, and rarely any idea at all of what mood the player should be experiencing at any given point in the game. Is it any surprise that most games fail to move people, when the development team are all communicating slightly different messages?

The mood map can be as simple as the above four stage progressions, or it can be as detailed as putting several mood chunks into each level. It is worth bearing in mind that literally no story-based game has only one mood. Even horror games oscillate between building tension and outright terror.

Once you have the gameplay types laid out and the moods defined you can see how the current level plans fit together.

(For full chart, please click on image)

In our case we have puzzle levels late in the game that are clearly going to slow the pace where we want people to be experiencing “mounting triumph.” By reordering levels, or shifting ideas from one level to another, we can better support the emotional goals:

(For full chart, please click on image)

Luckily KFZK’s level order is very flexible, but most games are not. In most cases the answer is to give feedback to the individual level teams to try to reach the desired mood and gameplay mix.

While the above example is probably not the best order, or even the best mood map, the point of the exercise is to try to force yourself into examining the entirety of the plan so that feedback on each level is given relative to its place in the whole experience.

Block Mesh and Prototype

The next step is to start building the levels in 3D, and I argue that the best people to do that are artists, not designers, if you want believable and interesting spaces. Block mesh should validate whether the level as planned will fit into the technical and production limitations while demonstrating that they can be compelling enough spaces.

As these levels are prototyped, inevitably things will end up being slightly different than planned. Designers will adapt their plans based on the art, so throughout the block mesh and prototype phase, the leads have to continually update the game rhythm chart and validate the levels within the context of the mood map.

By continuing to extract new mechanics that arise from the block mesh phase and staying open to level re-ordering you can continue towards a balanced game plan without restricting the creative process of the level builders.

Final plan

All the information gained by building the block mesh should have refined the game design significantly.

A final Mood Map has been created that will inform all asset creation.

New mechanics have been defined and inserted into all relevant levels.

Levels have been reordered and massaged to create the desired pace and mood.

Memory budgets have been validated.

Weak level plans have been cut.

Player abilities have all been prototyped and final metrics defined.

Once all the levels are prototyped and one level has been polished to act as a vertical slice, production can begin from a very solid basis