The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community.

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of creating levels at many great game studios. One thing that surprised me was that each of these studios had a totally different approach to level design, even though the basic content was extremely similar. Some had a logical, almost robotic approach to constructing levels, whereas others just threw as many ideas at the wall as possible, in the hope that something would stick. Whilst each approach had its advantages, it occurred to me that there must be a way of formalising the core elements of good level design in order to create levels that are both logical and innovative. I looked to my classic design background for inspiration, and was reminded of Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles for Good Design. Whilst these principles serve as a fantastic guide for product design, and, with a bit of creative interpretation, high-level game design, applying them directly to level (and mission) design required slightly too much force. Instead, I’ve used them as a loose template, to create ten Ramsian principles for designing compelling videogame levels (with the occasional detour into the realms of systems and narrative design) supported by some examples of great games in which you can observe these principles at work...



Good level design is fun to navigate



In most cases, the player’s core method of interaction with your level will be navigation – the process of actually traversing the level. Careful layout, lighting, signage and other visual cues should create a natural “flow” to the level that guides the player instinctively through it. From an aesthetic aspect, a game’s levels should all work together to create a consistent visual language, through the use of colour and form, that the player can learn, to progress intuitively through the level (Fig. 1).





Figure 1: Mirror’s Edge - in DICE’s seminal 1st person parkour game, the entire art style is geared to guide the player elegantly through the level. Even the screensavers on office computers help to point the player in the right direction.



This may seem like a fairly obvious guideline... but here it is important to understand the difference between “intuitive” and “fun”. Whilst basic progress through the level should be effortless, navigational gameplay can also be used to create fun. It is entirely appropriate to hide areas from the player, to add depth and replayability through exploration (as long as you provide the necessary visual or narrative clues), or to create areas where the player feels lost or confused, to create a sense of dramatic tension (Fig. 2).





Figure 2: Modern Warfare 2 – the Favella level in MW2 is a maze of crazy buildings, with enemies coming at you from all sides. Is it easy to find your way out? No. Is it tense and exciting? Absolutely! Modern Warfare’s Favella level is also an excellent example of verticality in level design, which can be an important aspect in making a level fun to navigate.



The main caveat while designing fun navigability is that it should not come at the expense of your other gameplay elements. Imagine the intense combat of Modern Warfare 2 in the crazy parkour levels of Mirror’s Edge... the navigational and martial elements of the level would be completely at odds with each other. There’s a good reason why DICE kept the combat in Mirror’s Edge nice and light.



And be careful not to fall into the same trap as Khan... always be sure to think in three dimensions when designing your level, and use verticality to keep the space interesting and fun to navigate!



Good level design does not rely on words to tell the story



A mentor of mine once told me that a good piece of communication is like a broken circle. The author creates this circle, but leaves a small gap for the readers to fill in themselves. But care has to be taken with this gap! If it is too small, the reader won’t notice it; too big and you risk losing the reader, who won’t be able to connect the circle. So how do we create the circle and the gap in a game level? First it is necessary to understand the three key narrative aspects at work in a level...

Explicit – this is anything that is called out by text or speech, e.g: a mission objective or cut-scene

Implicit – this is the story told by the environment through mise en scène (Fig.3).

Emergent – this is the story told by the player as he goes through your level