FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
Genre-Specific Level Design Principles
Some principles of level design apply only to games within specific genres. Since there isn't room to present a comprehensive list of principles specific to each genre, this section offers one highly important genre-specific principle for each genre covered in Part Two, "The Genres of Games," of this book. For more details on each genre, see the relevant chapter in Part Two.
Vary the pace. Action games put more stress on the player than any other genre does, so the universal principle vary the pace applies more strongly to action games than to other genres; that is why it is the most important genre-specific principle as well. Players must be able to rest, both physically and mentally, between bouts of high-speed action.
Reward planning. Strategic thinking means planning—anticipating an opponent's moves and preparing a defense, as well as planning attacks and considering an opponent's possible defensive moves. Design levels that reward planning. Give players defensible locations to build in and advantageous positions to attack from, but let the players discover these places for themselves.
Offer opportunities for character growth and player self-expression. Character growth is a major player goal in any RPG; some players consider it even more important than victory. Every level should provide opportunities to achieve character growth by whatever means the game rewards—combat, puzzle-solving, trade, and so on. RPGs also entertain by allowing players to express themselves; that is, to role play. Every level should include opportunities for the player to make decisions that reflect the player's persona in the game.
Verisimilitude is vital. Sports games, while not ordinarily broken into levels in the usual sense, consist of individual matches played in different stadiums or courses with different teams or athletes, so you can think of each match played as a level. Level designers design the stadiums and sometimes the teams and athletes. More than in any other genre, players of sports games value a close relationship between the video game and the real world. The simulation of match play must be completely convincing; try to model each team and each stadium as closely as possible to the real thing—which includes not only appearances but the performance characteristics of the athletes and the coaching strategies of the teams.
Reward skillful maneuvering. All vehicle simulations offer steering a vehicle as the primary player activity and steering well, often in adverse circumstances, as the primary challenge. Construct levels that test the player's skill at maneuvering his vehicle and reward him for his prowess. Other challenges, such as shooting or exploring, should be secondary.
CONSTRUCTION AND MANAGEMENT SIMULATIONS
Offer an interesting variety of initial conditions and goals. Most construction and management simulations (CMS) start the player with an empty space and let her build whatever she likes within the constraints of the game's internal economy. In such games, you won't need to do much level design. However, a CMS can also offer the player an existing or partial construction and let her continue working from there, often with a goal to achieve within a certain time limit. These are normally called scenarios rather than levels, the difference being that a scenario, unlike a level, consists of a self-contained situation unrelated to any of the other scenarios. Typically the game allows players to try the scenarios in any order, and the gameplay (though not the goal) tends to be identical in each. Because you cannot alter the gameplay, scenario design becomes a matter of offering an interesting variety of initial conditions and goals. SimCity 3000 Unlimited comes with 13 scenarios, from reuniting East and West Berlin to preparing for a World Cup soccer match in Seoul.
Construct challenges that harmonize with their locations and the story.
Adventure games offer much of their entertainment through exploration and puzzle-solving. Designers set different chapters of an adventure game in different locations or landscapes to add novelty and interest to the experience. (A chapter is the adventure game equivalent of a level.) Create challenges that harmonize with the current level and with the current events in the story. In a room full of machinery, the challenges should involve machines; on a farm, the challenges should involve farm animals or implements. This principle applies to some extent to any game, but because story is so important in adventure games, the principle is especially important for that genre.
Create many interaction opportunities for the creatures in their environment.
Much of the enjoyment in playing an artificial life (A-life) game comes from watching the simulated creatures in the game and giving them things to do within their environment. The level designer for an A-life game, then, needs to create interaction opportunities. The game should also offer many opportunities for the player to interact with the creatures as well, but generally the game designer, not the level designer, specifies these.
Give the player time to think. Puzzle-solving is problem-solving, and it knows no timetable. Few players enjoy being forced to solve puzzles under time pressure. (Tetris, a famous exception, at least lets the player pause the game.) You may not be able to offer the player multiple difficulty levels due to the complexity of balancing puzzle games—for further discussion of this issue, see Chapter 20, "Artificial Life and Puzzle Games"—which is another reason that time to think becomes important. Either create puzzles that give the player complete freedom to think things through before acting or allow him to pause the game and study the screen for a while.
