Practical Level Design Lessons

Practical Level Design Lessons

Elad Drory

im 12 and what is this??? D:Stuff we’ll talk about:

● Introduction● Types of games we’ll talk about (SPOILER: Not AAA)● How to start● Asking big questions● Teaching and Hooking● Classic Flow● F2P Flow● Example level progression● A dash of metagame● Applying this to endless games● Designing tools and level editors

Nice to meet you I guess Hi, my name is Elad Drory. I’ve been a game designer and producer for the past 4 years.

● Despite directing and being involved with game design for the past 4 years, I’ve only done more hands-on level design in the past year

● Recently I’ve made it my mission to do more hands-on level design, as I feel this is the only way to truly connect to the game

What kind of game we talking about?Each game is a unique little snowflake, but we’re going to focus on:

○ Level-based casual games &○ Endless games

Maybe you’ve never heard of videogames. Here are some other types:

● Narrative driven games● Open world games● Level-based free-roaming games● Multiplayer games

And this lecture is somewhat relevant for those too :)(Literally the first Google Images result for “videogames”)

How to start?This talk assumes you already have a core idea or mechanic. If you’re working on something new:

● Create a prototype● Find the fun● Brainstorm features, make sure you:

○ Add features that can be varied with parameters

○ Features that make the player change their playstyle and break monotony

○ Think of things that can be combined together to create cool reactions and emergence

○ Avoid gimmicky things that will get tired after 1 or 2 encounters

● Start thinking of “magic moments” using your features

How many levels?When you’ve got a broad idea of features and core mechanic, you need to decide how many levels you will need to create.

Bigger picture decisions like session length and total play time are beyond our scope today, but you must have a general number of levels to plan your progression

○ Determine minimum, maximum and optimal length for your levels

○ Give players at least 4 hours of play time during soft launch

○ Leave room to grow

Teaching the players● Break down all concepts that player will need to learn

into a list○ A feature is not a concept! Anything that’s new

to the players is○ Remember that a combination of two concepts is

often a concept in itself○ Examples: Static enemies, moving enemies,

shooting enemies, shooting moving enemies

Hooking the players● First time flow is critical!

○ Hook players in first 30 seconds with cool but very easy moment

○ A bit of story helps too● Teach the core gameplay during first 3 levels

(preferably even less)● Make sure to make big visual changes early, show

players there’s more to expect● Begin introducing new concepts

○ Introduce a concept in a controlled environment with low risk to player

○ Then combine it with everything else learned so far and ramp up difficulty a bit

● Have lots of concepts at start, slowly introduce less as you progress

Our Old Friend Flow

Recognize this?

Classic progression

Pain and relief leads to joy and fulfillment :)

Of course! But maybe...● Feeling OP is fun!

● Bringing players to brink of quitting encourages them to convert and builds love/hate relationship

LOL EZ

FFFFUUUUU

F2P level flowThe following couple of slides are graciously borrowed from Florian Steinhoff’s excellent presentation on Jelly Splash level design. You should go look at that.

● Players need challenge to stay interested. Build a love/hate relationship with the game

http://www.slideshare.net/wooga/jelly-splash-puzzling-your-way-to-the-top-of-the-app-stores-gdc-2014



F2P level flowThe following couple of slides are graciously borrowed from Florian Steinhoff’s excellent presentation on Jelly Splash level design





F2P level flowThe following couple of slides are graciously borrowed from Florian Steinhoff’s excellent presentation on Jelly Splash level design





F2P level flow● Blocking levels● Relief levels● Buildup levels● Forcing first session loss





FUUUU factor● FUUUUU factor● For example: 100 tries/5 nearly = FU 20● Lower FU is better● Remove any level with FU >10

Example: Cheating Tom 2● Goal was to improve the gameplay of CT1 and add

new features● Added level objectives for variety● Added new gameplay elements - powerups,

students and teachers● Example progression plan

Cross-level progression● Star requirements and gates force players to double back

and revisit content● Lets them feel how much their skill improved● Creating the illusion of “this is easy, I can’t possibly lose”● When planning your level progression, pepper in some levels

that are easy to pass, hard to 3-star. Make sure you have features that allow you to do this!

What if my game is endless?● Flow is still king

○ Difficulty builds up○ Spikes of difficulty○ Relief moments

● Have to start harder○ If you start too boring, skilled players will not want to replay○ Difficulty at start isn’t a turnoff for most players, in fact it

motivates them○ Balance out initial frustration by making restarts quick and

easy○ Make the mechanic easy to learn so new players feel

progress quickly

Replacing level progression● Add optional challenges during difficulty buildup● Mission systems can replace cross-level progression by making

players change playstyle and revisit concepts● In Linebound we used an XP method that proved itself very well

Asking for the right tools

● 80% of your time should be spent playing your game○ If your game has random elements, tough

break. Play each level many times to avoid wrong conclusions

● Your workflow requires you to constantly make changes and replay. You’re a designer, so design the right tools for yourself!

● Listen to tech guys, they may have better ideas on how to build your level editor

● Compromise! While your workflow is important, it’s eventually a tradeoff between dev time spent and your time. No matter how good the editor is, be prepared for lots of hard meticulous work

Asking for the right tools - part 2So we’ve made our iteration loop easy, but how easy is it to actually make changes? Best practices for making your changes quick:

● Anything chosen from a finite list should be in a dropdown menu or typed with auto-complete

● Parameters related to visuals or positions in the world should be edited visually, preferably with drag and drop, scaling, etc

● Don’t clutter your editor with too many options. Current thing being worked on should fit in single screen

● Separate things into several bite-sized editors of things you won’t work on in parallel

An example of how an editor for Cheating Tom might look

Asking for the right tools - part 3● Beware exposing all parameters of everything, or

“overriding” on game elements○ For the sake of the player, the game must have logic.

If they see the same enemy, they don’t expect its stats to be completely different because you overrode them

○ For the sake of your workflow, it’s easier to create a variant element in a different editor, and just choose that enemy in level editor. For example: “orc-tutorial” and “orc-normal”

● Maintain an easy way to do broad find/replace changes in the actual game data, without having to go over tons of entries

An example of how an editor for Cheating Tom might look