行业精英解答十大游戏关卡设计问题

作者：Coray Seifert

在过去5年里，Level Design in a Day成员都会在游戏开发者大会上聚在一起讨论关卡设计。而今年，Gamasutra提供给我们一个很棒的机会，即通过与游戏开发社区进行Q&A而与更多用户进行互动（不再只是面向几百个参加者）。

所以我们聚集了一群关卡设计精英（游戏邦注：选自今年的AAA Level Design in a Day Bootcamp名册上），并且他们都同意以圆桌会议的形势回答Gamasutra社区的问题。

Neil Alphonso：Splash Damage首席设计师

Jim Brown：Epic Games首席关卡设计师

Joel Burgess：Bethesda Game Studios高级设计师

Steve Gaynor：The Fullbright Company联合创始人

Seth Marinello：艺电/Visceral Games关卡设计师

（编者）Coray Seifert：Slingo总裁兼产品开发负责人

许多问题都是特别针对于关卡设计的技术，不过也有许多人对更广泛的制作问题，工具开发以及引擎局限等提出了自己的疑惑。

我总是说关卡设计是一种应用型游戏设计。这是一种专业化技术，也是关于技术，机制和无形乐趣等元素的广泛研究。因此，不管你所遵循的是怎样的游戏开发原则，你还有许多需要学习的地方。

我们的第一个问题是来自Bloomfield College Game Design的学生Roger Rosa：

1.在完成第一个关卡后关起设计师通常会遇到的问题或留心的主要内容是什么？关卡设计中哪些常见的缺陷会被忽视掉？

Jim Brown–通常我都会留意两大元素，即是否凌乱以及设定是否成立。因为设计师的自满或者快速完成某些“无聊的”设计环节，我们经常会在脚本，外观，以及关卡设计中发现各种漏洞。如果你能够专注于细节内容并重视每一个关卡环节，你便能省去许多不必要的麻烦（即更快，更明确且更轻松地进行设计）。

其次，关卡设计师经常会创造一个关卡假设，即玩家也能够像他们那样通过某一关卡。但是要知道，关卡设计师已经玩过自己设计的内容不下500次，但是玩家却并非如此，所以他们有可能在错误的时刻往后退，在混乱的时刻启动触发器，迷路，或者基于任何方法而摧毁你的关卡。当系统承受了过大的压力时，第一张通过地图将成为“黄金通道”并快速瓦解。除此之外，有时候我们只需要“把事情做好”，所以第一张通过地图也只要如此，然后我们便需要对性能，内存，节奏和难度进行大规模优化。

Steve Gaynor–我认为第一张通过地图应该呈现出相关布局和流程，而第二张则强调灯光和可见性。掌握空间的形状，大小和连通性是第一步，而在此之后你需要像玩家那样尝试着玩看看，并思考“我要何时进入这一空间？该往哪走？敌人来自哪里？如果迷失了方向我该如何引导自己向前进？”

有关这些问题的两大元素便是视线和灯光。你必须决定玩家在关卡的每个角度能够看到什么，以及看不到或者看不清什么。举个例子来说吧，如果玩家进入一个空间，并看到远处墙上的两扇门，那么是否其中一扇门比另一扇更加重要？玩家是否应该先进入其中一扇？也许你可以设置一个阻挡视线的障碍，如此他们便只能先看到其中的一扇门，并直到到达第一扇门时才能看到第二扇，如此他们便能顺利进入第一扇门了。

如果光线的设置没有差别的话，玩家便很难判断哪个属于优先选择对象了。你可以通过聚光灯和阴影去突出重要的目标，从而让玩家第一眼便注意到它。当你明确了流程，并帮助玩家瞄准重要的对象时，你便可以着手处理一些较小的细节元素，即在空间里添加各种内容。

Seth Marinello–当我完成了关卡布局后，我需要做的第一件事便是审视空间的大小和视线，从而进行可见性策略规划。因为我们在《死亡空间》里所创造的环境非常精细，所以我们必须在初始阶段基于性能而划分空间。最糟糕的情况便是，在基于GPU完善一个复杂空间后几个月我们才想起去划分空间。

关于一些被忽视的问题，我发现在早期开发阶段我们很难去明确游戏的节奏。没有对话和脚本的关卡将显得非常空洞，而反馈往往也是关于添加更多战斗，最后便导致节奏问题一直被拖到最后还未能得到解决。我们必须意识到这一点并规划好时间去处理这些问题。

我们的第二个问题是来自Twitter用户@Skizomeuh：

2.为什么现在的hub导向游戏那么少（基于关卡设计）？就像《银河战士》或《Hexen》等游戏。

Neil Alphonso–简单的来说是因为基于hub的关卡设计已经被开放世界所吞噬了。流式技术的发展以及艺术创造管道的完善都意味着关卡设计中许多限制因素得到了解决，从而实现了更加紧凑的游戏体验。Rocksteady的《阿卡姆疯人院》的发展便是非常典型的例子，即从hub导向向流线型开放世界模式而发展。当然了，现在也仍有设计师在使用hub导向原则，但是不可能像之前那么普遍了。

level_arkhamcity（from gamasutra）

Steve Gaynor–这个问题的答案源于不同层面–从技术上来看我们很难呈现出一个更开放且更自由的空间（基于视距，关卡流媒体技术等等）。基于设计角度来看还存在各种变量，因为你必须考虑“如果玩家从东部而非北部进入这个空间会怎样？如果他们在清楚了下一个领域后又回去的话会怎样？我该如何在一个开放的hub空间里引导他们走向下一个目标？”

hub导向的关卡设计非常明确，即倾向于玩家导向型探索，面向更“真实的”世界，并且因为你可以在玩家再次访问时改变任何领域的状态（而非延伸空间的面积），所以也具有内容再利用优势。但是设计师需要做出一些投资才能顺利完成这些设定。

Joel Burgess–我认为主要原因还是我们很难有效完成hub的创造。如果再次使用hub的话，你便需要投入大量时间去改变状态，然后完善hub并对玩家的行动做出反应。你可以通过使用相同的布局而有效做到这一点。《天际》中的“Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary”和《辐射3》中的“Mothership Zeta”便是如此。

我认为《Splinter Cell: Double Agent》是一款非常优秀但却被埋没了的hub导向型游戏。这款游戏解决了创造hub的问题，即将其更好地与游戏玩法融合在一起并作为NPC的存在空间。

我们的下一个问题是来自日本东京的@DCharlieJP：

3.关卡设计师知道游戏引擎的局限性吗？他们将如何在设计过程中解决这一问题？

Steve Gaynor–引擎的技术限制将定义我们作为关卡设计师能够做的一切事情。

而如何解决这些问题取决于你所使用的技术的状态—-如果你使用的是一个稳定且已建立的引擎，那么你所面对的局限性便会更加清楚，并且是从一开始自上而下地发展；如果在设计过程中技术也组装好了，那么程序员和设计师之间的交流便能更加顺畅，但是如果你不知道面对着何种局限性，那么便会遭遇更多不确定元素和挫折。

作为关卡设计师，你的部分工作便是提供帮助去超越技术上的局限性，并发现真正可行的方法，从而明确在引擎最终稳定后哪些局限性问题能够得到彻底解决。

Jim Brown–如果关卡设计师不清楚他们的引擎的能力，那么该项目便岌岌可危。任何项目最后的优化过程都是最复杂的，但是如果设计师缺少理解力便有可能创造出一些难以被接受且属于范围之外的内容（并导致不得不重新设计）；如此便会浪费预算，浪费时间和精力。

你必须在框架内进行设计，即确保你的团队和引擎都有制作能力，并且你还必须始终牢记所有目标，即使是在原型创建过程中。当然了，你需要先确保项目目标获得了所有团队成员的肯定。

基于Gears，我们可以使用UE3进行设计，所以我们事先便清楚自己想要高级着色器和多样性角色。作为一个团队，我们同意使用第三人称视角并舍弃“近距离”战斗，以此突出这些引擎功能。显然这将影响着整体的设计，并深刻影响着屏幕上的敌人数量，建筑规模以及相关脚本。

Neil Alphonso–关卡设计师必须熟悉其游戏引擎的内在运作，但是技术发展的快节奏却让他们很难做到这一点。而这也是需要在整个团队进行共享的责任；技术负责人需要为关卡和资产创造提供指南，关卡设计师需要为游戏提供符合环境视觉保真度的布局，而设计师则需要尽可能保证高质量并达到高帧率的目标。

在现代开发中，工具的使用能够帮助设计师们更轻松地做到这些，而自动过程也能帮助他们在问题还未太糟糕之前落实解决。设计师必须在原型创建过程中先解决任何机制上的风险，否则它们将渗入到整体的游戏中，并最终导致开发资源的浪费。

下一个问题是来自游戏产业专家，同时也是Kabam的总经理Mike Sellers：

4.工具和参数：你是如何知道玩家是否喜欢关卡，他们不会迷失于其中或受挫？对此还有许多解决方法，但是很多人都不清楚这些玩法。

Joel Burgess–尽早且频繁地将关卡呈现在玩家面前，并观察他们游戏。不要等到关卡优化完或者发行商/制作人等安排测试时才这么做。挑选某些人并让他们面对一些设置或引导较少的关卡。鼓励他们在游戏过程中畅所欲言。而你则不能干扰他们，不要提供任何帮助或进行纠正。除非绝对必要，否则请忽视所有直接的问题。

你从玩家身上所获得的未经过滤的反馈将是最好的指明灯，将帮助你更好地应对各种内部参数。

Jim Brown–最简单的答案便是关注并观察。尽管这听起来很简单，但是很多设计师却经常会忽视这一点。设计师总是会因为过度沉迷于自己的工作而忽略了其它元素。几年前我曾经说过，设计师的工作是“成为玩家的拥护者”，而不是创造自己喜欢的事物，或忽略玩家在体验游戏时所扮演的角色。你是在为他们创造游戏而不是自己！

也就是说，可用性测试，焦点小组，热图，状态追踪等分析工具都非常有效，设计师最好能够在适当时候加以利用。他们也可以多花些时间去掌握基本的心理学原理。人类的大脑非常奇特，并且不一定会按照我们所理解的方式而运转。设计师需要观看别人是如何玩自己的游戏，并抱着虚心的态度。了解玩家的想法才能帮助你成为更加出色的设计师。

Neil Alphonso–最省钱的方法便是观看其他人玩游戏，并做下记录。如今许多工作室甚至使用生物辨识数据从各种测试中挖掘更多有用的信息。在过去几年里追踪参数的工具有了很大的改善，并且如果目标是更大规模的用户，那么设计师定能获得更加客观的信息。Valve面向《半条命2》和《军团要塞2》所做出的改变都是基于Steam的参数。

下一个问题是来自@Jeremy LaMont：

5.当你想要获得玩家的关注时，你会使用何种策略？或者只是“让他们自己到处走”？

Steve Gaynor–我更倾向于让玩家“到处走”。但是如果你真的想要引导玩家前往一个特定的地点，你就需要想办法吸引他们的注意力了。

这也是我在今年的GDC大会上关于LDIAD教程的演讲“Narrative Techniques for Storytelling in Level Design”所强调的内容。关于这点有很多很棒的方法：使用灯光和影子去突出重要的对象，删除周边地区任何不相干的内容，有针对性地设置玩家的前进道路，从而让他们可以直接走向最重要的内容。

你肯定希望清楚且集中地呈现出最重要的内容，从而让玩家清楚并乐意接近这一内容，而不是让玩家感觉是设计师强迫他们这么做的。

Joel Burgess–你可以采取多种方法去呈现紧急的暗示，如选择合适的音乐，采用漏斗式布局方法或最小化那些有可能让玩家分心的元素。

关卡设计师必须清楚，玩家在看到一个较亮的对象的同时又发现远方出现了可爱的场景时会是怎样的感受。

面对这种情境他们首先需要做的便是明确是否该采取某种做法。计时器，UI提示，过场动画和其它设备都能够吸引玩家的注意，但同时他们也必须清楚不同玩家也会做出不同的选择，就像有些玩家需要引导，而有些玩家更在乎光亮。虽然迷失方向或困惑会让玩家受挫，但是粗率的关卡设计也会让他们倍感失望。

Neil Alphonso–我所使用的主要工具是密度，即：对象的密度，移动的密度，或者互动性的密度等等。我发现这是告诉玩家他们正待在一个“重要的”地方的好方法。同时这也能用于维持一些间接引导方法；你该如何引导玩家是取决于整体游戏及其创造性方向，而不是基于一个特定的关卡。这也是为何我们经常在影片或UI中传达一些重要事件的主要原因。

如果你给予玩家错失重要信息的机会，那么许多玩家便都有可能走上这条道路。这并不能怪玩家不留意，而是你根本不知道玩家在玩游戏时会因为哪些内容分心。

我们的下一个问题是来自Full Sail的毕业生@MrDonaldYoung：

6.你会多久让玩家离开一次黄金之路，并且是否需要其它资源去完成这一设置？

Steve Gaynor–这么做是必要的。游戏的灵魂就在于互动性，而互动性便意味着任何玩家都不可能拥有相同的游戏体验。如果你能够在不同玩家的游戏体验中添加更多差异性，那么他们便更能感受到彼此间的联系，例如他们会想“我决定到那里，我决定探索这个额外的空间，我发现一些别人没做过的事。”

作为一个主要路径以及拥有各种选择的空间，你必须让玩家能够在此深入挖掘并思考。如果你认为非主要路径空间的制作成本是基于“我们创造了多少玩家看不到的内容”，你大可以去创造一些强制性内容，确保每个玩家所面对的体验都是相同的，如此便没人会“错过”任何内容了。如果你认为可选择空间带给玩家的自我引导，投资，探索和发现都属于内在且无形的价值，那么整体的游戏体验将比你在电子数据表上所确定的更加完善。

Joel Burgess–我个人的选择是在任何可能时机包含一些不必要的内容。这既能奖励那些付诸探索的玩家，也能让游戏世界更加真实，即更加倾向于玩家及其故事。幸运的是，Bethesda旗下90%的游戏都未提供黄金之路，我们总是将资源花费在一些不重要的内容上。这便是我们的游戏所呈现出的部分感觉，不过不同游戏所面临的情况也不同。

level_deadspace（from gamasutra）

Seth Marinello–我会尽可能频繁地这么做。如果游戏能够提供给玩家更多机遇去获得独特的体验，让他们感觉自己找到了一些特别的事物，那么玩家便会更加重视游戏。

在为《死亡空间》设定关卡时，我尝试着包含了两种类型的选择内容，即“财宝口袋”和“测试房间。”首先便是有关探索的奖励；假设我设定了一条很长的走廊，但是通道只有一半的路程，那么我便需要在最后设定一些有趣的内容而吸引玩家。通过奖励去推翻空间中的种种界线，你便可以将一个死胡同变成新发现。

测试房间就如其名，是一个独特且不同于关卡通道的空间。我尝试着利用这些房间去扩展世界，让玩家感觉到世界的真实性—-这也是我为何要在我们的奇幻关卡中设置像广场，浴室，洗衣店等来自人类领域的内容的重要原因。

我们的下个问题是来自电子游戏记者，同时也是翻译家的@andymonza：

7.重玩价值vs.过场动画。真的能将这两个者整合在同一个游戏体验中吗？

Jim Brown–当然了，但这也意味着设计师必须放弃部分控制（但这却不一定是件坏事！），并且需要可靠的系统（游戏邦注：即基于灵活的脚本，强大的AI以及巧妙的世界建造等等）去保持新鲜的游戏体验。《战争机器：审判》使用S3（智能生成系统）而随机创造敌人并改变每次生成的地点，《求生之路》使用Director去控制节奏，《天际》能够避免游戏世界中各种遭遇的重复——这些只是众多例子中的一小部分，并且每一款游戏都还在使用动画和脚本序列（尽管少于其它游戏）。

我认为，将控制权交回玩家手上是一种很棒的设置，并且能够让玩家按照自己的想法去创造游戏故事。而《行尸走肉》之所以拥有较高的重玩价值是因为它并未将玩家束缚在唯一的前进道路上。

Neil Alphonso–如果能够提供可略过的过场动画的话，自然再好不过。

关键在于过场动画的内容总是不够灵活，因为它们主要是来自被动的媒体形式。电影机制和游戏机制是完全不同的两回事，如果将它们强行组装在一起只会弄巧成拙。因为重玩价值通常都是源自机制的深度和多样性，所以重玩价值和过场动画并不相配。

所以真的有可能将其整合到一块吗？是的，但是在传统的AAA级游戏中我们很难做到这一点。不过有时候，传统也是用来打破的不是吗！

Seth Marinello–对于大多数基于故事的游戏来说，过场动画是非常重要的一部分内容，但是它们却经常违背了灵活的游戏玩法这一理念。有些工作室尝试着创造分支过场动画去维持力量感，但是这么做的代价却非常昂贵，且不一定总是能成功。作为设计师和故事创造者，我认为设计师最好能够以受玩家驱动的方法去传达这些信息，如果这点失败后再将过场动画与游戏玩法维系起来。我们总是会利用各种机会而创造出相对应的过场动画去呈现主角所控制不了的其它事件。基于这一方法，我们并不需要玩家做出任何决定。

Kyttaro Games的@gnomeslair问道：

8.你们是如何使用相同的元素去呈现出完全不同的游戏结果？

Joel Burgess–在像《天际》和《辐射3》这样大型的游戏，我们就必须尽可能有效利用每一个元素。

我们必须抹去任何有关该如何使用某一元素的先行观念。抵制诱惑，从未将一个特定的设置类型与特定的遭遇或游戏类型维系起来。如果你能够混合更多元素，你便有可能发现更多多样性潜能。

基于这种期望，你便能够鼓励自己和团队从一个更开放的角度去思考如何执行各种机制，图像资产等等内容。这便意味着你的功能设置将更有活力并能够验证各种漏洞。

Seth Marinello–从游戏玩法的角度来看，创造出玩家能够理解的模式并以不同形式体现出来能够有效地传达出乐趣体验。你需要创造出玩家能够精通的任务，然后进一步延伸以提供更加复杂的挑战—-《传送门》便是基于这种设计。

Jim Brown–随着技术的不断完善，做到这一点已经不是什么难事了。更高的分辨率以及更好的材料意味着我们能够基于不同方式规划，循环并再次使用相同模式。更多多边形模型以及完善的渲染工具也意味着我们可以添加更多细节到不同模型领域中，以不同方式将其呈现出来。

最后，我认为获得好结果的最好方法便是真正理解现实世界的建造和心理学原理——如果你能够呈现出一些看起来“真实”或者符合“常规”的内容，人们便会下意识地接受它。对于关卡设计师来说，将关卡与有限的资源整合在一起将变成有趣的谜题，或者游戏本身。

倒数第二个问题是来自职业玩家兼游戏制作人Kal Shah：

9.制作人是如何帮助关卡设计师分担工作，并完善整体过程？

Steve Gaynor–作为制作人的最大优点便是为团队的人扫除障碍而去做最有价值的事。设计师们可能面临的阻碍是：没有空间能够添加游戏玩法；缺少支持关卡的图像资产；没有适当的机制去确保关卡的可玩性。所以如果设计师，制作人和其它部门人员可以进行开放交流，他们便能说：“我想要执行第一关的猎枪战斗，但是猎枪的敌人却不具功能性，”或者“我需要围绕着坠落的直升机创建游戏玩法，但是我却不知道它的大小”，如此便能够帮助其它部门人员更有效地规划工作。

除此之外，制作人也可以推动关卡设计师去扫清各种障碍——例如基于Maya授权和来自环境设计师的简短教程，关卡设计师便可以在等待真正模型的过程中创建一个临时模型；或者与程序员合作去运行脚本，从而让管家设计师能够基于脚本创建新功能的原型，而无需等到代码的完成。这不仅能帮设计师与其它部门的工作人员更好的进行沟通，同时也能让他们更加自立，有效完善生产力并推翻种种障碍。

Seth Marinello–制作人可以采取两种方法去帮助关卡设计师，第一种方法便是作为不同团体之间的接口–每个关卡都要经历从简单到完善的发展，设计师需要投入大量时间去整合各种内容并追踪每个组件的发展过程。如果制作人能够承担这些工作，那么设计师便拥有更多时间去迭代游戏玩法和性能脚本。第二种方法便是提供给设计师有用的意见。在设计过程中，设计师很容易忽略掉怎样的体验才是最适合终端用户，而制作人便能够帮助他们在进行测试前找出问题所在。

Neil Alphonso–对于许多开发工作来说，关卡便是最后的目的地；即我们经常说关卡是“检验行动的开始。”所以制作人在关卡设计过程中能够提供的最重要的帮助便是确保组件的即时交付，从而让关卡设计师能够有效地完成工作。随时提供临时交付内容也很重要，因为这能帮助关卡设计师更快速地面向不断发展的内容而调整相应关卡。如果交付对象是图像资产的话就难办了，因为图像设计师是不会提交任何“未完成”的内容。所以制作人需要确保交付途径能够包含许多整合阶段，即确保图像内容的创造不会阻碍关卡的设计。

我们的最后一个问题是来自育碧的关卡设计师Myles Kerwin：

10.我想知道关卡设计师在过去十年里取得了怎样的发展，并且你们认为在接下来的时间又会出现怎样的变化。

Jim Brown–我认为关卡设计是一种濒临灭绝的技术。关卡设计理念是伴随着在线游戏而出现。人们至始至终都能够创造独立的关卡。一开始我们需要自己完成所有工作，包括创造纹理，编写程序，撰写脚本，设计，设置灯光和路径等等！而最近的游戏公司开始将这些任务分配到特定人员手上，即出现了灯光专家，技术设计师，编剧，游戏玩法设计师，可用性专家等等。

而关卡设计师也变成了特定领域的专家，即专攻于谜题设置。随着界限越来越模糊，也许以后我们将很难再明确“关卡”的设定了。现在的关卡设计师还必须掌握如何整合各种相关系统。可以说，我们不仅不能再变回一般技术师，同时我们还需要扩展技能组合去适应整体的游戏设计，即包含关卡，生物，武器，战斗，视觉效果，脚本，性能可用性等等。

Seth Marinello–在过去十年里，关卡设计工作的最大改变便是从画笔过度到静态模型。从《雷神战锤》一直到早前基于Source引擎的游戏，关卡设计师都还是扮演着环境设计师的角色。从那以后我们便放下了许多编辑工作而专注于3D模型编程，如Maya。如此我们的游戏视觉效果也得到了很大的完善，但同时也彻底改变了关卡设计师在这一过程中的角色。现在的我们不只是创造者，同时也是整个团队对于关卡的看法的收集者。后来的几年我们见证了许多带有开放环境的游戏取得了巨大的成功，我也希望在今后几年里关卡设计师能够更加侧重实验而非依赖于脚本。

Joel Burgess–当我最初对关卡设计产生兴趣时，这还是一项单人工作。早前的制图人需要创造出关卡的每个元素，从布局到灯光再到脚本。但是在几年后，即当我真正进入这个产业时，这种情况便发生了改变。那时候，像PS2和Xbox等主机要求更高的视觉保真度，并且开发工具也比之前更高级更复杂。关卡设计变成了一个更加分散的过程，即通常需要2至3个人扮演着某一特定的角色。

那些不喜欢过度专业化分类的人会认为这一发展前景十分暗淡。虽然我知道设计师更希望专注于脚本或布局工作，但是我个人更愿意涉及游戏开发的所有工作，并且我也发现那些全能的关卡设计师总是能够将许多不相干的元素组成最出色的游戏玩法。而专攻于某一领域则不能培养出这种全能型关卡设计师。

我认为现在的我们正处在游戏和关卡设计的顶端。在保真度不断提升的同时，各种类型和规模的游戏也迎来了更加广阔的发展空间。这对于所有关卡设计师来说都是个好消息，因为不管拥有怎样的技能和兴趣，你都能找到一款最适合自己的游戏类型，并在此发挥作为关卡设计师的所长。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Level Design in a Day: Your Questions, Answered

by Coray Seifert

For the past five years, the Level Design in a Day crew has gathered in the hallowed halls of the Game Developers Conference to discuss all things level design. This year, the fine folks at Gamasutra offered us an awesome opportunity to interface with a much broader audience than the few hundred folks that usually attend the session by doing a Q&A with the game development community at large.

To that end, we’ve brought together a panel of esteemed Level Design experts, hand-picked from the roster of this year’s AAA Level Design in a Day Bootcamp — which runs all day on Tuesday, March 26. They’ve agreed to answer the Gamasutra community’s questions in the form of this roundtable feature.

Neil Alphonso: Lead Designer – Splash Damage

Jim Brown: Lead Level Designer – Epic Games

Joel Burgess: Senior Designer – Bethesda Game Studios

Steve Gaynor: Co-Founder – The Fullbright Company

Seth Marinello: Level Designer – EA / Visceral Games

(Editor) Coray Seifert: Vice President, Product Development – Slingo

While many of these questions are specifically focused on the craft of level design, there are a number of great quandaries that delve into broader production concerns, tools development, and engine limitations.

I always say that level design is applied game design. It is both a hyper-specialized craft and a broader study of the intersection of technology, mechanics and largely intangible fun. Thus, there are some great learnings in this feature — and in our GDC tutorial offerings — no matter what game development discipline you may come from.

Our first question comes from Bloomfield College Game Design student Roger Rosa:

1. What are common mistakes or key things level designers look for after the first pass of a level is finished? What are some common flaws in level design that tend to be overlooked?

Jim Brown – The two main things I tend to look out for are sloppiness and poor assumptions on the part of the LD. The vast majority of bugs in scripting, cover, collision, and general level design happen because someone gets complacent or rushes through the “boring” parts of design. If you have good attention to detail and treat every aspect of the level as important, then you’ll be much better off (faster, cleaner, easier) in the long run.

Secondly, LDs sometimes build a level assuming that the player will proceed through it in the same manner that the LD who built it will get through it. Just because you’ve played it 500 times doesn’t mean the end user has, and they will be facing backwards at the wrong moment, hit triggers out of order, go the wrong way, and break your level in every way imaginable. First pass maps tend to be very “golden path” and quickly fall apart when the systems are stressed. Aside from that, we sometimes just need to “get things working” so first pass maps do just that… and then need massive optimizations in performance, memory, pacing, and difficulty.

Steve Gaynor – For me, the first pass is layout and flow, the second pass is lighting and visibility. Knowing the shape, size, and connectivity of spaces is a good first step, but as soon after this as possible, you need to start playing through like a player would and think, “When I enter this space, how do I know where to go? How do I know where enemies might be coming from? How do I orient myself if I get turned around and lose my way?”

The two biggest aspects of these issues are sightlines and lighting. You have to determine what the player can see from each point in the level, and what is occluded. For instance, if you enter a space and you can see two doors on the far wall, is one more important than the other? Is the player supposed to enter one first? Maybe set up a sight blocker so they only see one door first, and can’t see the second one until they’ve reached the first one, and so in all likelihood will go in there first instead of skipping it. Can I see entrances, egresses, and important objects?

If the lighting is too even, nothing is prioritized. Look at how you can throw spotlights and shadows around to highlight important things, so the player can get a lay of the land on first glance. Once you have the flow laid out, and a good idea of what the player’s visual understanding of the major concepts in the spaces will be, you’re in a good position to move on to smaller nuts-and-bolts aspects of placing incidentals in each room.

Seth Marinello – Once I have a white box layout of the level complete, one of the first things I will do is review the room sizes and sightlines in order to plan out our visibility strategy. Since the environments we create for Dead Space are so high-detail, it is very important we get a handle on how the space can be divided for performance at an early stage. One of the worst things that can happen is having to slice a room in half after months of trying force an over-complex space through the GPU.

As to overlooked problems, I find pacing can be hard to read early in development. Without dialog and scripted moments, a level can feel empty and the feedback tends to add more combat, resulting in pacing problems once the rest of the content comes online. It is important to be aware of this and schedule polish time to address these issues.

Our second question comes from Twitter user @Skizomeuh:

2. Why are there so few hub-oriented games (in terms of level design) nowadays? I’m thinking of games like Metroid Prime or Hexen.

Neil Alphonso – The short answer is that hub-based level design has essentially been eaten by open worlds. Advances in streaming technology and improved art creation pipelines have meant that many of the constraints that originally put the “level” in “level design” are dissolving away, allowing for more seamless experiences. A perfect example of this is the evolution from Rocksteady’s Arkham Asylum, which is hub-based, to the streaming, open world model of Arkham City. Many of the principles of hub-based level design still apply, but ultimately not as much backtracking is required.

Steve Gaynor – The answers to this come on all different axes — it can be harder technically to allow for more open, free-flowing spaces (based on view distance, level streaming tech, and so forth). There are also many more variables from a design perspective, since you have to consider “What if the player comes into this space from the east instead of north? What happens if they backtrack after clearing the next area? How do I direct them to their next goal when the space is an open hub instead of a hallway?”

The benefits of hub-based level design are clear — much more player-directed exploration, a more “real-feeling” world, and the advantages of content reuse since you can change the state of an area when the player revisits it, instead of having to build more square footage. But it takes a few specific kinds of investment to pull it off.

Joel Burgess – I think the main reason may just be that hubs are tough to pull off well. Revisiting a hub can get stale fast — you may end up spending a great deal of time implementing state changes and otherwise having the hub evolve and react to player actions. That work can end up overwhelming any savings you may have gained by reusing the same layout. We ran into this with both the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary in Skyrim and Mothership Zeta in Fallout 3, for example.

For what it’s worth, one current-gen, hub-based game that I think is unsung is Splinter Cell: Double Agent. This game also solves a sticky problem of crafting a hub which accommodates gameplay as well as being a convincing living space for NPCs.

Our next question is from @DCharlieJP in Tokyo, Japan:

3. How aware are level designers of the limitation of the game engine? How is this factored in and/or communicated in the design process?

Steve Gaynor – Oh, very aware. The technical constraints of the engine define everything you can do as a level designer.

How it’s factored in depends a lot on what state the tech is in — if you’re working with a stable, established engine, your constraints can be much more clear and top-down from the beginning; if the tech is still being assembled while the game is being designed, the dialogue between programming and design is more fluid, but can also be more uncertain and frustrating, if you don’t know exactly what your constraints are.

But on some level, part of your job as an LD in this case is to help push the limits of the tech, and discover what it’s capable of as well as what you would LIKE it to be capable of, in order to help figure out what the constraints will end up being when the engine does stabilize.

Jim Brown – If LDs aren’t fully aware of their engine’s capabilities, the project is at an extreme disadvantage. The last bit of polish at the end of any project is usually the most difficult — and that’s always expected — but a lack of understanding that leads to building something entirely out of scope (or otherwise causes major redesigns) is unacceptable and wasteful; it can kill budgets, schedules, and careers.

You have to build within the framework of what your team and engine are capable of producing, and you have to keep those goals in mind even when prototyping. And of course, you have to ensure that project goals are aligned across the entire team.

With Gears, for example, we were just starting in on UE3, so we knew up front that we wanted advanced shaders and high-poly characters. As a group we agreed on a third person camera and close “intimate” combat distances to highlight those engine features. That obviously influenced design across the board, and had to be kept in mind at all times as it affected the number of enemies on screen, scale of architecture, and encounter scripting in big ways.

Neil Alphonso – Level designers need to be as familiar with the inner workings of their game engine as they can be, but the pace of technological change can make this very difficult! In the end, this is a responsibility that needs to be shared throughout the team; the tech leads need to provide guidelines for level and asset creation, the level designers need to provide a layout that can marry this with the environmental visual fidelity targets for the game, and the artists need to push as much quality as they can within that and still hit framerate goals.

Tools have made this somewhat easier in modern development, as automated processes can flag any problematic areas before it gets too painful to change them. Anything mechanically risky really needs to be addressed in a prototype well before production, because unless it is or becomes something that is used game-wide, the chances of development resources being dedicated to it for such isolated use are significantly lessened.

The next question comes from games industry veteran and Kabam General Manager, Mike Sellers:

4. Tools and Metrics: How do you know how players like the level, aren’t getting lost, frustrated, etc? There are some good solutions for this but they’re also unknown for a lot of people (even pros).

Joel Burgess – As early and as often as possible, get people in front of the level and watch them play it. Don’t wait for the level to be polished or for your publisher/producer/whomever to arrange a playtest session. Grab somebody and sit them down with as little setup or guidance as possible. Encourage them to vocalize as they play. Then: Shut up. Don’t interrupt, don’t help, don’t correct. Ignore direct questions unless absolutely necessary.

The unfiltered feedback you get from players will always be the best guiding light, and will often help you win internal arguments you had already been having.

Jim Brown – The simplest answer is to watch and pay attention. And while that sounds obvious, it’s probably the most overlooked. It’s not uncommon for designers to get too attached to their work. If you’re too involved or too invested, you tend to lose sight of the bigger picture. A few years ago in my LDIAD talk I mentioned that the designer’s job is to “be an advocate for the player” — you can’t just build things that you like, or lose sight of what the player’s role is in experiencing your game. You’re building for them, not yourself!

That said, usability testing, focus groups, heat maps, stat tracking, and any other number of analytical tools are incredibly useful and should be employed whenever possible. It’s also well worth the time to read up on some basic psychology. The human brain is a crazy thing, and doesn’t always work the way you would assume. Watch as other people play through your work, and keep an open mind. Getting into the head of the average gamer will make you a better designer.

Neil Alphonso – The lowest-cost method is simply watching somebody play, and diligently taking notes! Many studios even now use biometric data to help mine more useful information out of these sorts of tests. Tools for tracking metrics on a large scale have improved significantly over the years however, and can provide much more clinical information when a big enough audience sample size is provided. Valve’s changes to Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 that have been based on Steam metrics have shown that with enough actionable information, frustration points (or “shelf moments”) can be lessened significantly.

5. How do you change your approach when you want a player to PAY ATTENTION or GO HERE DIRECTLY versus “It’s okay to wander around”?

Steve Gaynor – I definitely tend toward allowing as much “it’s okay to wander around” time as possible. But if you really, truly need to direct the player to one specific point (for tutorialization or whatever) it’s all about generating focus.

This is what a lot of my talk on “Narrative Techniques for Storytelling in Level Design” is going to be about at the LDIAD tutorial at GDC this year. There are a number of best practices: Use spotlighting and silhouetting to highlight important objects, remove any extraneous interactive objects from the surrounding area, arrange the player’s path so they walk head-on into the important part of the scene, and many others.

You basically want the important stuff front-and-center and clearly visible, so the player will be aware of it and engage with it willingly, instead of being “forced” to do so by the designer.

Joel Burgess – There are many ways you can communicate urgency cues subtly, like choosing appropriate music, incorporating funneling elements into your layout or minimizing elements that may distract the player. Sometimes it’s not enough.

Level designers everywhere understand the discomfort of watching players examine a light fixture while a lovingly scripted scene plays out a few feet off-screen.

The first thing to do in these situations is to determine whether you should actually do anything at all. Timers, UI prompts, cutscenes and other devices can help direct attention, but know the difference between a player that needs guidance and one that simply cares more about that cool light fixture. Being lost and confused as a player can be frustrating, but heavy-handed level design is always frustrating.

Neil Alphonso – My main tool for this is density, which can take many forms: it can be density of objects, density of movement, or density of interactivity, and that’s just to name a few! I find it a good way to subtly tell a player that they’re in an “important” place. But this method is used to maintain a decidedly indirect method of directing a player; how heavy-handed you can be with directing the player is more down to the game or creative direction of the entire game, rather than how it is handled in a given level. It’s why essential events are often conveyed during cinematics or with UI.

If you give the player the chance to miss what you deem as critical information, chances are that many of them will indeed miss it! This isn’t because players are unobservant, but more because you never know what distractions a given player might have when they’re playing the game.

Our next question is from Full Sail graduate @MrDonaldYoung:

6. How often should you create situations for the player to go off the golden path, and is it worth the extra resources to do so?

Steve Gaynor – It’s absolutely worth it. The soul of games is interactivity, and interactivity means that no two players are going to have precisely the same play experience. The more variance you can add between two players’ experience of your game, the more of a personal connection they’ll feel — “I decided to go here, I decided to explore this extra space, I found something that other people didn’t.”

Having as minor a crit path as possible, and as much optional space as possible, gives the player much more to dig into and think about and own for themselves. If you think of the production cost of non-crit path space in terms of “look how much content we’re building that the player might never see!” you can easily talk yourself into making everything mandatory, every player’s experience the same, so no one “misses” anything. But if you think of the inherent, intangible value of the feelings of self-direction, investment, exploration and discovery that optional spaces provide the player, the overall experience is improved much more than you can easily quantify on a spreadsheet.

Joel Burgess – My personal preference is to include non-essential content whenever possible. This rewards players who explore, but it also helps make the world feel less artificially focused on the player and her story. Luckily for me, about 90 percent of any Bethesda game is off the golden path, so we’re used to spending resources on non-essential content. That’s part of the feel of our games, though; your situation may vary.

Seth Marinello – The basic answer is as often as possible. The more opportunities for players to have a unique experience, to feel like they found something special, the more important the game will be to them.

When laying out a level for Dead Space I try to include two kinds of optional content — “treasure pockets” and “beta rooms.” The first is simply a reward for exploring; if I have a long hallway, for example, and the alpha flow only takes the player halfway down it, there should be something interesting at the far end, even if it is a pickup. By rewarding pushing the boundaries of the space, you can turn a dead end into a discovery.

Beta rooms are exactly what they sound like, a space that is both unique and separate from the alpha path of the level. I try to make these rooms build out the world more, make it feel inhabited — this is why I tend to build in human spaces like quarters, bathrooms, and laundry facilities to our sci-fi levels.

Our next question comes from video games journalist and translator @andymonza:

7. Replay value vs. cinematic sequences (usually from heavy scripting). Is it truly possible to make the two coexist in the same experience?

Jim Brown – Absolutely — but it means that the designers have to give up on a bit of their control (which is not necessarily a bad thing!) and you have to have reliable systems (flexible scripting, strong AI, smart world building, etc.) in place to keep the experience fresh. Gears of War: Judgment uses S3 (Smart Spawn System) to randomize enemies and change spawn locations in every encounter, Left4Dead uses the Director to control pacing, Skyrim has a matrix of possibilities that avoids repetition in world encounters — and these are just a few examples. Each of those titles still makes use of cinematics and scripted sequences, albeit less frequently than other titles.

In my personal opinion, this is an incredibly great thing as it puts the control back in the hands of the player, and allows them to make the game story more uniquely their own. Even The Walking Dead has a heavy use of cinematics paired with high replay value because they don’t tie their players down to one single path that must be adhered to.

Neil Alphonso – If the cinematics are skippable, then yes!

The key issue is that cinematic content isn’t flexible, because it borrows so heavily from what is a passive form of media. The mechanics of what makes film work and what makes games work are fundamentally different, and trying to marry them at a base level often ends in tears. As replay value most often comes from mechanical depth and variety, this can truly be an odd coupling!

So is it possible? Yes, but in a traditional triple-A sense this is a hard battle to justify fighting. But sometimes, traditions are made to be broken!

Seth Marinello – Cinematics are an important part of most narrative-driven games still, but they are inherently counter to the idea of flexible gameplay solutions. Some studios have invested in creating branching cinematic moments to try and maintain a sense of agency but this tends to be expensive and not always successful. As designers and storytellers I think this energy is better focused on finding ways to convey the same information in a more player-driven manner, and when that is impossible to use cinematics as a bridge between gameplay moments. Whenever we can, we try to make scripted moments be in response to some event outside of the protagonist’s control. That way we don’t have the character making decisions without the player’s input.

Kyttaro Games’ @gnomeslair asks:

8. How do you reuse similar elements for vastly different gameplay results?

Joel Burgess – With games as big as Skyrim and Fallout 3, it’s very important that we’re able to make effective use (and re-use) of every element at our disposal. This is a big part of the topic I’ll be covering during our LDiaD session at GDC, in fact.

One good thing to do is to try and erase any preconceived notions of how elements should be used. Resist the temptation to strongly associate a specific setting type with a specific encounter or gameplay type. The more that you enable yourself to mix and match these elements, the more potential variety exists for you to discover.

By setting this expectation internally, you also encourage yourself and the team to think in more open terms about how you’ll implement various mechanics, art assets, and the like. This means your feature set will (hopefully) be more robust and bug-proof overall.

Seth Marinello – From a gameplay standpoint, creating patterns that the player will understand and then dressing those in different guises is key to delivering a fun experience. You need to create tasks which the player can master, and then ramp them to provide further challenge — Portal is a textbook example of this kind of design. As others have mentioned, this is a topic that we will cover in more depth at this year’s LDiaD session.

Jim Brown – This has definitely gotten easier as technology has improved. Higher resolution textures and better materials mean we can scale, rotate, and reuse models in different ways without them looking too similar. Higher poly models and improved rendering means we can add more detail to different areas of the models, and then light them differently to vary how they appear.

Ultimately, however, I think the best way to get good results here is to have an understanding of real world architecture and psychology — if something looks “real” or appears “normal” people will subconsciously accept much more than you’d think. There’s a certain amount (and style) of repetition that happens in nature, and a general look to shapes and structures that the brain will accept without too much filtering. For the LD, putting together a level with limited resources becomes a fun puzzle, or game of its own.

Our penultimate question comes from pro gamer and game producer Kal Shah:

9. What things can a producer do to make the job of a level designer easier and improve the process as a whole?

Steve Gaynor – The biggest benefit of production is making sure that no one is blocked from doing the most valuable work they could be doing right now. The kinds of things that block designers are: Not having a space built that they need to put gameplay into; not having art assets that their level will be based around; not having mechanics in place that are required to make their level playable. So having open communication between design, production, and the other departments to be able to say, “I need to be implementing the first pass of the shotgun fight, but the shotgun enemies aren’t functional yet,” or, “I need to build gameplay around the crashed helicopter, but I don’t know what its dimensions are” will help other departments prioritize their work.

But aside from just giving other people work, it can be even more useful for production to facilitate ways for level designers to unblock themselves — for instance, providing a Maya license and a brief tutorial with an environment artist, so that an LD can model a temp mesh while they wait for the real one; or working with programming to get script actions so that the LD can prototype new functionality through scripting instead of waiting for completed code. Helping designers communicate better with other departments, but also be more self-sufficient, will improve productivity and reduce blockers.

Seth Marinello – There are two major ways a producer can aid the level design process. The first is as an interface between groups – as a level goes from white box to final, lots of content needs to be integrated and tracking the progress of each component can take a lot of time. If there is a producer there than can do that legwork and ensure progress is getting made on the key assets the designer is free to iterate on gameplay and performance scripting. The second is as an external sounding board for design. It is easy to get too close to a design and lose sight of what the experience will be like for an end-user, a producer can help catch issues BEFORE your work goes through the focus test wringer.

Neil Alphonso — Levels are the final destination for a lot of development work; an often-used phrase is that levels are “where the rubber hits the road.” Because of this, the most critical thing a producer can do to help the level design process is to ensure timely delivery of the components that make up the level designer’s work. It’s also important to provide interim deliverables whenever possible, as this helps the level designer to more quickly adapt the level to the evolving content. This can be particularly tricky with art assets, as artists can be notorious for not submitting something that is “unfinished.” Ensuring that the pipeline includes many phases of integration as art content is being made ends up being hugely effective risk mitigation for unforeseen complications hampering a well-playing level.

Our final question comes from Ubisoft level designer Myles Kerwin, via the Level Design in a Day Facebook Group.

10. I’d like to hear about how Level Design has evolved over the past decade, and how you think it will change in the years to come.

Jim Brown – I think that level design — in the classic sense — is an endangered craft. The concept of level design first came into being with the advent of online gaming. People could make self-contained levels that they worked on from beginning to end. We made our own textures, did our own programming, scripting, design, lighting, pathing… everything! More recently, companies have separated that work out among many specific talents: lighting specialists, tech artists, scripters, gameplay designers, usability experts, and everything in between.

As such, LDs became micro-specialists who were very good at one piece of the puzzle. Moving forward, it will be harder and harder to identify what a “level” is as the lines get blurred. There are so many systems involved now that you have to understand how they all work together. I bet we’ll not only go back to being generalists, but actually expand our skill sets into general game design – levels, creatures, weapons, combat, visuals, scripting, performance, usability and anything involved in crafting an “experience” rather than just a “level.”

Seth Marinello – In the last decade the biggest fundamental change in the level design workflow has been moving away from brushes to static meshes. From Quake 1 all the way through the early Source games the level designer was also the environment artist. Since then we have moved a lot of the work out of our editors and into 3D modeling programs like Maya. This has vastly improved the visual quality of the games we can make, but at the same time drastically changed the role of a level designer in the process. Now, we are not just creators but also integrators and collaborations with whole teams supporting the vision of a level. In the last few years I have seen a lot of games succeed with more open environments; I hope over the coming years we see level design focus on enabling experimentation over following a script.

Joel Burgess – When I first got interested in level design, it was very much a one-man operation. Early mappers would create every aspect of their levels, from layout to lighting to scripting. Just a few years later, as I got into the industry, that was already changing. New-at-that-time consoles like the PS2 and Xbox demanded higher visual fidelity, and dev tools were more robust and complex to use than before. Level design became a more distributed process, often involving 2 or 3 people in more specialized roles.

This may seem like a bleak prospect for those who are uninterested in heavy specialization. While I have known designers who prefer to focus on scripting or layout exclusively, I personally enjoy dabbling in all aspects of game dev, and have historically found that well-rounded LDs thrive at bringing together disparate elements as great gameplay. Specializing runs somewhat counter to cultivating this kind of LD.

I think we’re at an exciting cusp for games and level design right now, though. While the upper end of fidelity continues to rise, there’s more room than ever for games of all types and scale. This is great news for level designers, because no matter what unique combination of skills and interests you may have, there’s a game out there for which you’re the perfect LD.(source:gamasutra)