Ten Principles of Good Level Design + Cognitive Flow

After reading Dan Taylor's "Ten Principles of Good Level Design", I decided to make my own ranking for these principles.

GOOD LEVEL DESIGN:

• 25% Creates Emotion 
• 15% Driven by your game's mechanics 
• 15% Fun to Navigate 
• 10% Efficient 
• 9.5% Constantly teaches the player something new 
• 8% Empowers the player 
• 7.5% Tells the player what to do, but now how to do it 
• 5% Does not rely on words to tell the story 
• 3% Surprising 
• 2% Allows player to control the difficulty 

I’m pretty sure we have all realized by now that the weight of these factors is heavily dependent on the intent of the game. It is important to keep in mind why do players play and what do they want? Generally speaking, it’s a mix of seeking challenges, dynamic experiences, bragging rights, emotional payoffs, exploration, and fantasizing. All games create emotion-- whether or not they intend to-- so I’m putting a heavier weight on that. I also feel that the emotion created tends to tie into just how empowered a player feels. Actions are driven by emotions, most often than not.

Level design being driven by mechanics makes overall sense-- even when the game is more of a story-driven one, such as The Walking Dead Game. This should have an impact on how fun it is to navigate a level. Whether this is because of the layout itself, the way in which mechanics are implemented around the map, or even the amount of enemy encounters and their difficulty levels; it is important to note that players expect direction to positively influence immersion.

It’s a bit difficult to categorize some things but I think maybe more emphasis should be placed on teaching players something new. While I believe that empowering the player is important-- empowering them too much can be plain awful and make for a boring gaming experience. Take the Assassin’s Creed series, for example. I often found myself becoming too OP semi-early in the game...which only made for a tedious experience once I got to Revelations and it was already too much of the same thing (usually once you master counter-kills in an AC game, the game is instantly 60% easier in terms of combat). Part of this could definitely also be attributed to playing as Ezio for 3 straight games. Again, too much of the same thing-- especially in a game where I’m expecting to play as different ancestors and was marketed as a triquel. But that’s another thing entirely, I guess.

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Now let's do the same for Sean Baron's article on "Cognitive Flow"

GAMES SHOULD

• 35% Have concrete goals with manageable rules 
• 30% Only demand Actions that fit within a player’s capabilities 
• 25% Give clear and timely feedback on player performance 
• 10% Remove any extraneous information that inhibits concentration 

I’m basing my rankings on player expectation. Players expect direction inside a consistent world. They expect to understand the boundaries of the game world, and sufficient direction in order to accomplish a task incrementally. Players expect to be given fair chance at survival, although they will always expect setbacks (otherwise their want to be challenged is not met). In accordance to that-- players also expect to not have to repeat themselves needlessly or get hopelessly stuck. Players’ expectations of their gaming experience is practically never-ending, but it is important to note that they don’t always know what they want, but they WILL know when it’s missing.

Sephirot Trailer

Trailer for game in collaboration with Noa Belfer.

You play as an Esper with the ability to see brief flashes of the future. Your visions allow you to see the infected cores that plague the Sephirot-- the Tree of Life.

Sephirot Layout

Came out with this idea for the Sephirot layout. Essentially, the roots kind of circle around the tree, spiraling downwards in a sort of spider-web fashion. The blue lines correspond to roots the player can walk on, and red are roots that are so corroded they'd disappear if a player tried to walk on them. The green circles show the correct path down to the center. I have yet to figure out exactly at which locations the platforms with the obstacles would be but I like this idea so far.

Gotta love gridlines.

Disco Church Inferno

Trailer done to sort of explain the story and introduce the mechanics of my toy pitch.



Still needs some adjustments. Can hopefully get those done by next class and resubmit.

Game Mechanics Dump

1. Time-based thing in which the player runs up a set of spiraling platforms while the platforms are falling down into the abyss
2. A puzzle in which you have to get from one end of the room to another via moving platforms. You have to not only decipher the pattern, but also shoot different switches (crystals?) that change the direction of differently colored platforms. (i.e. Blue platforms have a set pattern. Red platforms change via switch)
3. Magnetic force field that shields you from damage by keeping you surrounded by nearby objects.
4. Going down a long corridor in which both the ceiling and floor close in on you. Timing and pattern searching is key.
5. Stepping on different panels that let out different sounds. A certain pattern must be played to open the door. The correct pattern is played right after entering the room.
6. A game in which you have to run around a robot/totem/something that spins around with beams the player has to avoid. The rotation changes direction and speed depending on the damage the robot thing has sustained. You're on floating platforms too, aha.
   
7.  Block-pushing puzzle because those are fun
8. Puzzles that force you to turn back time to complete
9. Physics puzzle game? 
10. Light up torches in a certain pattern to open the door.
11. Extinguish the torches in reverse of that to get a treasure chest, ka-ching.
12. Go through a forest...There is a certain path you have to follow. Players are lead with hints about the phases of the moon. I.E. the moon has to be on a specific phase to go through. If you don't, you get reset back to the beginning of the forest.
13. Water levels that rise and fall controlled via switches
14. Library laid out like a labyrinth with shifting bookcases that are triggered by levers
15. Or library with several different heights and ladders that you can push around.
16. Rotating walls/bookcases
17. Switch-Bridge Puzzles inn which switches  are turned on and off,  causing bridges between islands of passable tiles to appear and dissapear. You have to find the correct combination of switches to unlock a path to the exit.
18. Teleporting puzzles that test your memory along with trial and error
19. Conveyor belt styled puzzles were you have to ride on the right path to find goodies and the exit
20. Passcode doors with the password pieces hidden
21. Ice puzzles where you keep sliding until you hit an object and you have to seek a way out.
22. Tile puzzles where you have to step on all the tiles ONCE to get through the exit.
23. Rube Goldberg....?

Reference: Attract Trailers

First up, Devil May Cry 4:



Here we get to see some bits of gameplay and a lot of cutscenes. Enjoyable trademark music amps up the atmosphere along with some general idea of the world, what the story is about, very brief glimpse at different characters and what you'll be doing for the game (namely kicking demon booty). You also get to see a lot of really flashy moves that you can do in-game as well as some of the weapons you'll be getting.



This attract trailer shows cars spinning out at times as well as scenery. Mostly focused on the cars, but still shows nice mixed shots.



...as a bonus, this DMC HD Collection trailer shows a nice mix of the different games together-- which could be used for putting together different levels and the like; with defining music for different tracks



aaaaand this Silent Hill one shows a lot of really nice gameplay (and I really like this song)

Race track-- in the works

I've realized I haven't really posted much about my level-- but here it is. Still a work in progress.

These are some shots after getting in the correct skybox and fiddling with the exponential fog for a more "haunted" and cursed area effect.

Race Intro Sequence

Here's a few that caught my eye:

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing
A lot of great shots, showing off interesting parts of the level (palace, track, RAINBOWS)

WipEout HD Fury

Here's a short previous from different circuits that slowly pan about and fade out. I like how focused they are.

SKYLINE: Aces High

This one has rather dramatic shots that slowly pan in, but are held for a much shorter amount of time than those in WipEout. 

Trail of Destruction

This one is similar to the one above, I really like the shots.

Stunt Concept: Revisited

According to a good friend of mine, "The car has gotten stripped off its skin and is now free of the stultifying sins that chained it to its vroomvroom rights. The faces of the skin embodies the seven crimes it has committed...and sakuras welcome its crossing over to a better future as the driver transcends the nihon land through the temple!" Thank you, Bene

I still don't know how digital painting works! But here's my concept painting (the colors sure look different, no.....) illustrating my stunt....which is essentially cursed stones descending down on to unsuspecting players!

Sketches and vector map

Here are some thumbnail sketches I was working on

a slightly more refined sketch...mostly practicing digital painting...I'm not satisfied with the lighting

I like this one a bit more, the light makes...a little more sense, I think?

Vector map for my level

Theme

My level is based on Tanabata-- a Japanese festival celebrating the meeting star-crossed lovers: Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair) separated by the Milky Way (a river made of stars in this case). These festivals often take place outdoors after the stars have come out at night-- and I'm planning on making mine by a small village at the edge of a valley, surrounded by mountains, making the roads mostly made up of stone and dirt. My concept statement is "Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine."

Ideally, there'd be plenty of trees around from which to hang paper cranes, paper kimonos, paper strips with wishes written on them and streamers. The main row would be lit up with paper lanterns.

This is the color scheme I'm going for:

Map & Stunt:

For my stunt, I'm going for an area of bamboo that's being pushed over by falling demon rocks from the valley. Also a ramp at the very end of the track that gains the player big air time and lands them right back on the start.

Stunt Designs

I was thinking back to Psychonauts and the levitation level-- which made me think that it would be pretty neat to have a racing game in which you had to work your way upwards via ramps or objects that made you bounce / glide in the air.

So-- essentially a spiraling an escalating race to the top with various ways of getting ahead of your opponent. 

I was also thinking back on Snowboard Kids-- and how in order to reach certain shortcuts, it's usually easier to fail right before getting to said shortcut. Whether it's by purposely missing the jump right before the shortcut or letting rocks hit you to slow you down just enough to get it--  It would be pretty neat to have some sort of grotesque heads try fall and having to actually get hit in order to roll into the shortcut. Otherwise-- you're probably going to fast to catch it and/or not in the right direction.

To add to that-- it would be interesting to also have the same path set at different heights-- and with each height comes a different challenge. Whether it's going through a narrow and barely lit tunnel to having to maneuver yourself in order to catch a bunch of speed ramps and make it to the next level-- that might pse an interesting challenge.

Stunt Time

In my search for car / racing / vehicle stunts (there's so much stuff out there, it's crazy), I've stumble upon a few Chevy Sonic Stunts. Here they had a campaign in which people could click to push a car attached to a bungee cord off a makeshift platform. I like the idea of having the player have to mash buttons or something in order to either make something happen (charge?) or to avoid a disaster (pulling away from something that caught you that will throw you to your doom!)



That's just neat. Might be interesting to have some sort of bungee jump styled action that actually releases the player (cable snaps?? grabbed by an invisible entity??) as they get closer to the track from a very high point.

Speaking of being released-- the fast and furious has some examples of crazy drifting-- but what I really like is how about 18 seconds in they barely bust out from a garage. Close calls are always exciting.

Snowboard Kids is a racing game that makes use of a lot of shortcuts that are often a little harder to navigate than the regular path BUT the type of "ground" is one in which your snowboard will move faster in).  48 into the race, the player takes one of the many shortcuts in the Night Highway.

Not a racing game but some of these stunts are pretty crazy. There's a lot of air time in these videos-- so much it's rather insane. 2:47 into the video, they go through a neat loop ramp on top of a building. The loop also seems to be suspended in mid-air????

Megaman X4-- while not technically a racing game, I do remember that you had to ride on some sort of fancy motorcycle thing to get to the boss. There are numerous times in which the player must jump over bombs and shoot down crates in order to get by. The path also tends to split into an upper and lower area-- with the lower area usually consisting of said bombs and crates blocking the path and the upper level is mostly ramps you have to jump onto in order to avoid said bombs and crates.

Print & Play - Tartarus Master

At long last...It is done...!

For the Print and Play version, just download and print this file. More images under the cut.

PnP - Class Test

Today our games were due! We got together at the lounge and played some games~ Here they are, all lined up and ready to rumble~

Here's mine, for the record:

Used a wooden monopoly box I've had since...middle school. It was actually a gift so I feel..kind of bad about using it but at the same time, it's getting used for a much greater purpose...! (I don't play monopoly much, oops)

My phone was being...rather uncooperative, but I did manage to save this image to capture what the day was like:

PnP - Box Art Cover Process

I decided to try something new for my cover...here are some shots with my progress:

Started with remotely thick strokes trying to shape up the overall composition. The bridge/structure thing was kind of...interesting at this point.

PnP - Theme

We're touching up on theme, motifs, and symbols--which is great because I'm a huge sucker for stories...and now I'm having a difficult time picking one as an example of a strong, unifying theme...

Let's go with

If you've never played 999, the easiest way to explain it is to say it's kind of a mix of the films Saw and Cube. This game's a visual novel using "choose your own adventure" styled mechanics with a point and click interface that has you solving puzzles and trying to unravel the plot.

PnP - Playtesting

Last class we got to playtest our PnP games.

PnP - Theme???

I'm somewhat in between going for a hacker/virus theme instead of mythical generals battling it out...Time to compare some things...

Brainstorming - PnP