What are important elements to understand for level design?

Hi C_Williams, I'm just a hobbyist programmer, but did pick up an interesting tip recently. The presenter was talking about the game design of the FPS Hitman. Specifically, the presenter was talking about a level where you had to assasinate a mobster who was in his estate. There was an armed guard outside. The video asked, "What is the purpose of the guard?' Obviously, I thought the guard was there to protect the mobster, duh! The video went on to explain the designer's motives where more abstract; the guard wasn't there to protect the mobster, but to give the player choices. Does the player try to take the guard out with a sniper rifle? Or maybe the player creates a distraction and enters the house while the guard is investigating. Or maybe the player desides to avoid the guard altogether and sneak in through a window.. I never though about levels like that, and found it interesting. I made a few simple design choices in a game I'm currently making based on the idea of providing choices. Congrats on completing your degree!

@scott8 Thank you for your response, that is a very good tip and I'll keep that in mind! Giving the player choices in how they can approach the level does make the game more fun and immersive, so I believe that's important to remember with level design. That reminds me of Dishonored, where you can choose to approach the game missions in entirely different ways, such as navigating the levels without being seen by a single enemy or just walking through the front door into chaos.

There's an interesting (and short) book by Chris Solarski, 'Interactive Stories and Video Game Art', that may interest you. Although it says 'video game art' in the title, it is primarily about how graphic design principles apply to the gameplay experience. There are many examples that relate to level design; you may find the ones related to drawing the player's attention to the right places particularly helpful. That is an area that is, in my view, unique to videogames - in film, the director always has complete control over the camera angles and thus the power to guide what the viewer pays attention to. That control is hugely limited in games, so it is important to make sure that is compensated for, or the player may miss something important, if not be lost wandering aimlessly in the game world.

The book, by the way, is much more, and deals with visual art and audio, as well as how a player may respond to a game psychologically - the friendly circles, neutral squares, and hostile triangles are a recurring theme in the book that also illustrate a surprising unity in how we perceive art across art forms and media.

c_williams said:
I have done research on different sites (Gamasutra, World of Level Design, and a few others) for information on affordances, leading lines, etc. I was wondering if there are any important design elements that would help me to develop a better understanding of level design?

You mentioned a few sites, just learn continuously.

There's an enormous field of psychology that applies to level design. Levels can evoke emotion, encourage discovery, and affect mood. Horror games have a wide body of research about how level design affects the mental state. Kid games will have different level designs to evoke different emotions. Detective style games where you hunt around and want corners to explore, and sprawling RPGs which have a mix of designs ranging from open fields to twisting passages, all with

Topics like interior design and architecture apply to level design, not just today's but interior design and architecture through history: if your levels are set in 17th century France you better know a bit about buildings as they existed in 17th century France. If you're exploring both France and China, the two have quite different designs. Even going decade by decade in the past few centuries you can find how things change, you can watch as floor plans opened up while others moved to constrained flow between rooms, you can watch as color schemes and lighting change through the decades.

Then there are issues of gameplay and balance. In a PvP world very few games do well with symmetric designs, just rotate or flip the world and both sides get the same thing. Far more compelling are complex worlds where things are fair and balanced yet still different. There's the concept of “perfect imbalance” where nothing is the same where you go yet everything has pros and cons, counters and responses.

There is no short list to help gain a better understanding. You could study for decades and still have an ever-growing understanding.