Ten Principles of Good Level Design

The following are notes taken on the design principles created by Dan Taylor, delivered in his GDC presentation in 2013.

Good level design is fun to navigate.
- Needs Consistent Visual Language
- Needs Clarity & Flow
- A Little Confusion is Cool
Good level design does not rely on words to tell a story.
- Avoid the Broken Circle
- Three types of narrative: Explicit, Implicit, and Emergent
  - Explicit is what the player is told by the designer.
    - Usually through tutorials or 4th wall breaking.
  - Implicit is what the player learns.
    - Mise-En-Scène: environmental narrative. (Bioshock is a great example of this.
  - Emergent is the story told in the player’s head, aka head-canon.
    1. Player choice assists emergent narrative.
Good level design tells the player what to do, but not how to do it.
- Consider Nebulous Objectives
  - Only give as much information as is necessary to this player. (No tutorializing.)
  - Provide multiple paths and styles of approach.
  - Don’t punish the player for improvisation.
- Parallel Missions
  - When each path, in the ‘multiple paths’ scenario, rewards the player with something helpful on an adjacent path. (Best seen in Metroidvanias.)
Good level design constantly teaches.
- Pattern Analysis (Derived from Theory of Fun by Raph Koster)
  - The human mind enjoys processing patterns for storage or later retrieval.
    - If this process stops, the enjoyment ends.
    - In your game, each level should either introduce, showcase, or subvert a key mechanic.
    - Pacing of this philosophy is also key.
- Your Game Should Be One Massive Tutorial (Without Tutorializing)
  - Ex. Zelda Dungeons:
    - 1) Dungeon gives you a new item.
    - 2) Dungeon forces you to continually use item to progress.
    - 3) Dungeon requires mastery of the item to beat the boss and complete said dungeon.
    - 4) Then in the greater open world, you’re constantly presented with ways to use the item/s to progress and navigate secrets, and obtain more items.
    - 5) Rinse, repeat.
      - Final Boss always asks you to use the equipment in an unusual way.
- Learn, Play, Challenge, Surprise
  - Teach mechanics explicitly.
  - Provide safe areas to play with mechanics.
  - Bring in a threat or compelling objective to challenge the player with the mechanics.
  - When the player is feeling comfortable, bring in something crazy/different to surprise them.
Good level design is surprising.
- Good level design is NOT a monster closet popping out to scare or desensitize the player.
- The Rollercoaster
  - Increasing intensity, with low intensity patterned throughout
    - Effective at first, but becomes extremely predictable.
    - Fun is created through uncertainty.
- Disrupt Paradigms
  - Ex. Dead Space 2 Ishimura Level
    - No monster, no monster, deeper and further into the level, still no monster.
    - Close to the end: BAM! Monster!
- Take Risks
  - What looks good on paper doesn’t necessarily work in your game.
  - Test risky ideas as soon as possible, and overtest them.
Good level design empowers the player.
- Go Big or Go Home
  - Video games are escapism. Capitalize on it.
- Real Life Sucks
  - Don’t make your game mundane or laborious, filled with things you can do everyday in the real world.
- Deliver the Fantasy
  - Allow for physics, or reality breaking mechanics.
  - Your character, in some form or fashion, should be ‘super’.
- Visible Influence
  - If possible, let player choice and actions visibly change/alter the world in the immediate, or stored for later.
Good level design is Easy, Medium, AND Hard.
- Risk vs Reward
  - Calling back to multiple paths.
    - Easy = safe & less rewarding
    - Hard = risky & very rewarding
    - Medium = somewhere in-between the above
  - The multiple paths approach creates dynamic difficulty.
- The Layered Approach
  - Provide opportunities to reduce the risk, even in the Hard paths.
  - Enhances replayability.
Good level design is efficient.
- Modular Level Design is Your Friend
  - Facilitates creating with speed.
  - Think of your level designs in terms of Lego pieces.
- Bi-Directional Gameplay
  - Most players will blaze through your art.
    1. Reuse your best art.
  - Backtracking is NOT cool.
    - In instances where backtracking is necessary, change things up…a lot.
- Encourage Non-linear Elements in Your Designs
  - These elements have to be relevant, don’t create gameplay for gameplay’s sake.
    - For non-linearity, call out player rewards in advance.
Good level design creates emotion.
- ART by Definition:
  - Art is the quality production, expression, or realm according to aesthetic principles of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
- Art by Subjective Definition:
  - Art is anything which has been created to invoke an emotional response.
- Architectural Theory Evokes the Same Emotional Principles as Game Level Design
- Utilize Spacial Empathy
  - Tight corridors give a sense of confinement.
  - Twisting pathways and mazes conjure confusion.
  - Large enclosed open spaces provide uncertainty.
  - Darkness spreads a sense of fear.
  - Light and healthy greenery provide a sense of safety.
  - Water soothes the senses with calm and relaxing thoughts.
  - Flickering light sources make the one feel erratic and uneasy.
  - Non-euclidean elements equate to a sense of mystery, confusion, uneasiness, and fear.
  - Attacking the player from above enables a sense of persecution.
  - A feeling of vertigo from scaling a tall obstacle.
  - A feeling of hope by placing a reward at the top of said obstacle, or by transitioning from dark to light, decay to greenery, narrow to open.
  - Encompassing/overwhelming green or red light can mess with feelings of fight or flight.
- Work Backwards
  - Your starting point should be the desired emotion you wish to evoke.
  - Then you should drill down and choose the spatial parameters, narrative elements, and mechanics to elicit those emotions.
- Lying About the Mission Parameters Evokes Extreme Emotion, Intensity & Uncertainty
  - Ex. The player may be asked to hope out for X enemy deaths, only to find out mission completion requires Y amount of time past, vice versa, etc etc.
Good level design is driven by mechanics.
- Books let you imagine extraordinary things, movies let you see extraordinary things, but games let you DO extraordinary things.
- Metaphysical Medium
  - Your game is a painting:
    - The subject is your game’s mechanics.
    - The composition is your narrative and your graphics.
    - The medium is your game’s level.
- Everything You Create Should Showcase Your Game’s Mechanics
- Creative Reuse of Mechanics
  - Don’t just rinse and repeat.
  - Find ways to keep mechanics fresh.
  - Keep the player learning.
  - Don’t focus on just increasing the playtime.

Dan Taylor is currently (2020) Design Director at Thunderbox Entertainment; previously of Eidos-Montréal, Square-Enix Montréal, Ubisoft, Rockstar Games, Electronic Arts, Sony Computer Entertainment, Virgin Interactive, & Cruise Control