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0:00
When we explore the level in a game, we find an environment full of possibilities and restrictions. Basically, we interact with different objects through actions, there are things you can and cannot do. Inevitably, some levels offer more interesting challenges and interactions than others. But don't worry, it's not a question of the type of challenge this level offers. Liking real-time combat and hating
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turn-based combat just comes down to each person's particular taste. That's not what I'm talking about, the conversation here is about the player experience. So how can we think of a Level with challenges and interactions that enrich this experience? I'm Gabriel and this is Praise The Game. When we build a Level, we are defining what kind of dynamics the player will have with the mechanics that have already been established. In an
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action FPS game, it will probably include situations where the player faces hordes of enemies. However, there are several ways to create this same type of situation, right? Left 4 Dead, for example, manages to instigate and engage players in a way that few games can. It's clear that not just placing some enemies for the player to shoot and the fun is guaranteed. Even if a game offers the same type of challenge as another, there are some criteria that make one
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experience more interesting than another. Writer and game designer Brian Uptom helps us think about this construction and organization of a game environment through a framework that offers five general principles. And they are: Choice, Variety, Consequence, Predictability, Uncertainty. The concept of choice has so many aspects that it is possible to make a video just about it, but let's keep this conversation in
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general terms within what Brian proposed. In all Level Design, the player is presented with a game space in which he constantly makes choices. These choices are actions, or verbs as some designers call them. In a platform game, your main action is jumping. In Marked of the Ninja, you have different ways of navigating the level. You need to discover the best routes to reach the objective, trying to be as stealthy as possible.
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The player crosses open terrain hiding behind objects, but can also cross over it, hanging from poles. Inside buildings, he can navigate through pipes, corridors or sometimes outside, climbing to the roof. All this while avoiding being seen and caught by enemies or falling into traps. In fact, depending on the skills you have previously chosen, some routes become more accessible than others. And the player also has several combat options. You can avoid direct confrontation and take down
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enemies with a simple silent attack. But you can also be creative, taking advantage of your skills and scene objects to eliminate enemies. Whether using gas bombs, darts that drive enemies crazy and attack teammates, knocking down chandeliers and many other ways. And although it is not highly recommended, you can also resort to a direct fight at a critical moment. It's clear then that the levels in Marked of the Ninja offer many opportunities for the player to make choices. But just
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choosing is not enough, the player needs to feel satisfied with their choice and this only happens when it is meaningful. Deciding whether to climb a building or invade it from the front will only be a meaningful choice if they have different values. Perhaps from the front you will reach the objective faster, but face more obstacles, while on the roof the path is longer, but safer. The choice with the most positive result
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will create satisfaction in the player for having made the right choice. Of course , this also involves other factors, an experienced player will feel more satisfied following the fast path, because he is able to face difficult challenges. The important thing here is that there is no point in Level Design offering the opportunity for the player to make choices in which the result is equally good for any of them. A
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game also needs to allow the player to make mistakes or make less desirable choices. Likewise, when a player needs to decide to jump onto a platform or straight onto a hole in which he dies, he is not making a choice. It's already done. Now if he had to decide between two platforms to jump, that's when the scenario gets interesting. Well, we understand that choices need to have different values and cannot be obvious. But what about when
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there are too many or too few choices, is it a problem? A game can become boring if it has few choices, and it can also become confusing if it offers too many. But the truth is that there is no ideal amount. An Endless Runner game, even with few and simple mechanics such as moving sideways and jumping, it still manages to be interesting. Why? Because of the fast pace. The player needs to make a quick but significant decision. It's challenging because it tests our reflexes.
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If there were several choices to make in that short space of time, the player would get confused and the result would be pure frustration. A turn-based game generally offers more complex scenarios because the pace is slower or simply guided by the player when the game itself pauses, as in the Fire Emblem franchise. You have a lot more time to think about the possibilities. So defining many or few choices depends on the project proposal. But it's worth
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mentioning that a simpler game tends to be shorter precisely because the possibilities run out faster, no wonder RPGs offer so many mechanics. Furthermore, when there are many options, it is common for players themselves to start limiting their choices and most of them end up being discarded due to their low efficiency. This is where the principle of Variety comes in. When we face a challenge and win, a natural behavior is that we will repeat the same strategy if the next situation is
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the same. There are still choices, but we no longer need to consider which one is better because the situation has repeated itself, that is, we already know what works. If we were to consider an ideal model, each situation a player faces in a game should be unique, but this means that the scope would be enormous, as would the project's workforce and budget . It is not viable in most cases. A very efficient formula that became a standard in
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game design was the mix of mental and physical challenges. At one time the player faces enemies that test their reflexes and timing, and at others their logical reasoning through puzzles. In this way, the game is always promoting variety, especially because the way to approach and solve these challenges will be different from one to another. But not every project wants to bring different ways, but rather focus and develop a type of challenge.
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Therefore, a more comprehensive way to approach this issue is what some designers call layering. Doom from 1993 does this very well. Combining different groups of enemies and different level layouts, it often manages to bring new features to gameplay. First, it assigns unique characteristics and behaviors to enemies. We have those that attack from a distance: the imps, for example, use projectiles like fireballs, which allows you to dodge, and the shotgunguy
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shoot with shotguns using hitscan, that is, it only registers whether they hit you or not. We also have enemies that use melee attacks, like Demons. Depending on the position in which these enemies are organized, deciding which to eliminate first is essential. You need to avoid the shotgun guys getting too close, otherwise the damage will be certain, but a quickly advancing Demon may ask for more of your attention. And second, the game introduces its
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elements gradually. In the first level, for example, we will only encounter three types of enemies. Cocodemon, the last common enemy to be introduced, only appears in episode 2, 8 levels later. Until then, the game presents these enemies in different formations. And even though the game has a small selection of enemies,
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it is always creative in how to surprise us, especially with ambushes. This prevents the player from always repeating the same strategy. On the contrary, you improvise a lot. The exploration of the levels is shorter and more direct at the beginning. You move forward, kill the enemies and reach the exit. But in the following levels, you find more spaces complexes with several alternative routes, and now you need to find cards to open the doors
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that lead to the exit. In some segments, there are unique mechanics, such as poison pools. The important thing here is to understand that it is necessary to constantly reorganize the Level Design to keep the challenges exciting, you are superimposing one layer on top of the other. Group different enemies into different closed and open layouts. But it is also necessary to be aware of when these overlapping possibilities
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have already been exhausted, that is, when the player has already found the solution. This is when something new needs to appear. Doom introduces a new enemy, a new weapon, or an exploration-related challenge. He's not a classic for nothing.
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It may seem obvious that every choice needs to have a consequence, but what we need to discuss in this topic is how to make a consequence meaningful. It needs to create new situations that change our understanding of the game and not be an empty choice. Turning the lights on or off in a room can be an interesting mechanic if you can discover new details and interactions in that room. Otherwise, it's just a visual change. The player needs to realize that their actions are causing change.
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The same goes for long-term consequences like in strategy and management games. In SimCity, building a police station will keep an area safer and even increase the value of properties within the perimeter, but this is not a consequence with immediate results. The game offers graphics and visualization modes for the player to understand how this choice is affecting the city, showing the progressive decrease in the crime rate. It is important
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to allow the player to follow this transformation so that he can be sure that his actions are having an effect and take action if something unexpected happens. It is clear that the consequence is directly related to signaling. Give signals or tips to the player regarding the choice he made. And there are some guidelines for creating good signage. First, generally speaking, signals should follow immediately after an action. Again, even long-term ones
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should signal the player progressively. If you attack an enemy, he needs to retreat, or maybe blood fly everywhere, or even show numbers. All of these signs indicate that you are causing harm. The longer the time between an action and a signal, the weaker the connection the player will make between them. Like if you attacked and the damage appeared 10 seconds later, you wouldn't be so sure that this signal came from your attack.
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Signs must attract the player's attention to the consequence and not to the action itself. Have you ever played a game where you interacted with a lever or switch and couldn't identify what it did? If a door opened, where was it opened? In this case, some games take control away from the player and show a cutscene. It even works, but it's not an interesting design. Others are more creative and use, for example, a sound effect that directs your attention.
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When the player doesn't realize what was affected because the signal came from the action and not the consequence, he will most likely become confused. Failures and negative feedback should also be flagged. Missed shots, objects that don't break or attacking enemies with a shield and realizing that it repels your attack. The game needs to indicate that the mechanics may fail or not work as expected with a certain object. In Spyro Reignited, you can destroy
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wooden chests simply by breathing fire at them. However, there are metal chests in which fire will not work. The visual feedback is to show that the metal heats up for a moment and then returns to normal. It communicates to the player that the interaction takes place, but does not have the expected result. To destroy these chests, the player needs to use the dash, another mechanic. This is what we call robust verbs, or mechanics, when all types of interactions
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are communicated to the player, even negative ones. And finally, we need to be careful with signs of empty actions that lead nowhere, or worse, cause misinterpretations. When you interact with a locked door in Resident Evil 2, you hear a unique sound, and
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this signal indicates that this door can be opened. On the other hand, in Silent Hill 2, in which we explore larger places like the city itself, most of the doors in these buildings will not give any response, there is no interaction even if they are also locked. This is because the game doesn't want you to think that these doors can be opened, so it simply nullifies any signals. The point here is not to confuse the player or
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waste time. Therefore, not everything should be flagged, especially if it opens up a space for the player to misunderstand a mechanic. Not only do choices have consequences, they also need to be predictable. And predictability here refers to a connection between cause and effect. This principle is important because while we play we always try to achieve objectives, whether they are more conventional ones in which you simply seek to overcome a challenge or perhaps interact with a narrative in
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which you need to clarify the facts better. And to achieve these goals, we need to not only understand the mechanics of the game but also strive to make choices that take us closer to victory and further from defeat. Because we also need to predict what, for example, will kill our character. This is only possible in a scenario in which we are able to predict the causes and effects of our choices. If you shoot an enemy and he falls, you understand
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that it was your gun shots that knocked him down and not that he fell randomly. Furthermore, this issue not only encompasses the mechanics, but also the controls. When we identify which is the jump button, we hope that every time we press that button, the character jumps. If he happened to do a different action every time we pressed that
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button, winning a challenge would be a result of luck and not a conscious choice. Therefore, there are two main techniques that indicate to the player a coincidence so that predictability is possible: The first of them is Familiarity. We all have a wealth of experiences that come either from real life or even from other games, and it is because of this that we are able to deduce the effect of some actions. You assume that if you touch the spikes that are blocking a path, you will take
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damage. The same result if you fall from a very high place. An enemy that has a shield will block all of your frontal attacks and you will need to find an opening or attack from behind. Realize that you can understand the casualness of these situations easily because it is within expectations, our previous experiences. Taking damage is the consequence, but predictability allows us to understand the cause. But a game doesn't just work with
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familiar elements, that's where Proximity. When events happen close to each other, whether in space or time, we naturally conclude that there is a relationship between them. It's not true in real life, but in games it is recommended that it be. In any game of Tetris, as soon as we fill a row, it disappears and we earn points. We immediately understand that there is a coincidence: we free up space by filling in the gaps with the pieces that are falling out.
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In Portal, right away the game presents its main mechanic: crossing portals that connect distant spaces. When we go through the orange portal, we exit through the blue one and vice versa. The coincidence is very clear due to the proximity and we easily understand how the mechanics work even if we are not familiar with it. Whether they are unusual or more abstract elements, this technique helps us understand the course of action,
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the cause of an effect, showing us that it is our choices that are defining the result. However, it may seem paradoxical, but a gaming space also needs a dose of uncertainty. If you could predict the entire chain of actions leading up to victory, with complete certainty and without ambiguity, the feeling would be similar to when you have a variety problem: you are no longer making choices, just following a predetermined path with victory
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guaranteed. . In this case, you pre-determined it yourself. Players need to anticipate randomness in their actions, but the outcome cannot always be perfect. That's why games they add elements that increase the chances of the player making mistakes. And don't understand this as sabotage on the part of the design, nor does it justify creating unfair gameplay. This is a way to keep the player engaged and always thinking about the best strategy and the best
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decision-making that the current moment calls for, as level design changes. Otherwise, the game would be boring, after all, you would have discovered the solution to overcome the challenges at the beginning, everything would be predictable. Key ways to bring uncertainty into a game include adding: Randomness. The element of luck is great for making the player have a little hope as well as making them never feel too confident. From
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one moment to the next, luck can turn the tide for the player, or perhaps completely against it. In RPGs, he manages to maintain tension during combat. Your attacks may fail and miss the enemy and put you in an emergency, or who knows, maybe save you by landing a critical attack. In Warcraft 3, characters have a minimum and maximum damage range. There are several other factors that influence damage, but ignoring them for this example, what these ranges
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indicate is that the player has a probability of dealing maximum damage or minimum damage. This means that a duel between characters is never so defined. If you fight an enemy with greater damage than you, you may still win if you land more than your maximum damage while he hits more than his minimum damage. Creating a very satisfying dramatic situation. And of course it's always good to dose. Too much luck
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in a game ends up alienating the player and he ends up realizing that his choices have no effect, since it is luck that defines the result. Another way would be to add Hidden Information . You can plan different combos with your deck in a card game, but you don't know what your opponent has in hand, which will make you rethink a lot of your moves. In the same way, a good Survival Horror maintains our tension because it always makes us
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try to guess where and when the next enemy will appear, and it can appear in totally unpredictable ways. In Invisible Inc, you control a pair of spies. You never know what awaits you in the next room, which is why it is necessary to proceed with caution, looking for ways to increase your vision of this new space and then establish strategies. Otherwise you could be surprised by cameras, guards and other dangers, and compromise the mission. The idea here is precisely not to reveal everything to
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the player so that there are always surprises or even the risk of things not going as planned. It's not giving him the full picture of the situation. However, at the same time, the player can prepare and can even try to minimize the consequential damage. It's good to remember that inserting hidden information is not cheating the player, leaving him completely in the dark and leaving him to guess how everything works, since nothing is predictable.
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Although in some cases, that is the goal. It's worth mentioning that an extreme form of Hidden Information would be multiplayer games. You face another player and not AI, so there are infinite possibilities. It's a depth of gameplay on a psychological level, the deepest. With these five principles, you can understand what is working or missing in the player's experience. A level needs to offer choices for you to make.
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These choices need variety so that the player does not repeat the same actions. Furthermore, it is essential to show the player that these choices are causing changes in the game, and we do this through consequences. And for a player to be able to accomplish an objective, they need to understand the connection between cause and effect of mechanics through predictability. Finally, so that victory is not easy and obvious, the player cannot discover the
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best strategy right from the beginning, that is where we insert a dose of uncertainty. I want to emphasize that these general principles, despite their scope, will not suit every type of project. They establish a basis that can guide the development of many games, but the intention is not to limit and restrict creations within these principles. The tool is useful as long as it is useful, so feel free to subvert it or even find a method that makes more sense for your goals.
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Thank you very much for following the channel, hugs and see you next time!
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