作者：Coray Seifert

在過去5年里，Level Design in a Day成員都會在游戲開發者大會上聚在一起討論關卡設計。而今年，Gamasutra提供給我們一個很棒的機會，即通過與游戲開發社區進行Q&A而與更多用戶進行互動（不再只是面向幾百個參加者）。

所以我們聚集了一群關卡設計精英（游戲邦注：選自今年的AAA Level Design in a Day Bootcamp名冊上），并且他們都同意以圓桌會議的形勢回答Gamasutra社區的問題。

Neil Alphonso：Splash Damage首席設計師

Jim Brown：Epic Games首席關卡設計師

Joel Burgess：Bethesda Game Studios高級設計師

Steve Gaynor：The Fullbright Company聯合創始人

Seth Marinello：藝電/Visceral Games關卡設計師

（編者）Coray Seifert：Slingo總裁兼產品開發負責人

許多問題都是特別針對于關卡設計的技術，不過也有許多人對更廣泛的制作問題，工具開發以及引擎局限等提出了自己的疑惑。

我總是說關卡設計是一種應用型游戲設計。這是一種專業化技術，也是關于技術，機制和無形樂趣等元素的廣泛研究。因此，不管你所遵循的是怎樣的游戲開發原則，你還有許多需要學習的地方。

我們的第一個問題是來自Bloomfield College Game Design的學生Roger Rosa：

1.在完成第一個關卡后關起設計師通常會遇到的問題或留心的主要內容是什么？關卡設計中哪些常見的缺陷會被忽視掉？

Jim Brown–通常我都會留意兩大元素，即是否凌亂以及設定是否成立。因為設計師的自滿或者快速完成某些“無聊的”設計環節，我們經常會在腳本，外觀，以及關卡設計中發現各種漏洞。如果你能夠專注于細節內容并重視每一個關卡環節，你便能省去許多不必要的麻煩（即更快，更明確且更輕松地進行設計）。

其次，關卡設計師經常會創造一個關卡假設，即玩家也能夠像他們那樣通過某一關卡。但是要知道，關卡設計師已經玩過自己設計的內容不下500次，但是玩家卻并非如此，所以他們有可能在錯誤的時刻往后退，在混亂的時刻啟動觸發器，迷路，或者基于任何方法而摧毀你的關卡。當系統承受了過大的壓力時，第一張通過地圖將成為“黃金通道”并快速瓦解。除此之外，有時候我們只需要“把事情做好”，所以第一張通過地圖也只要如此，然后我們便需要對性能，內存，節奏和難度進行大規模優化。

Steve Gaynor–我認為第一張通過地圖應該呈現出相關布局和流程，而第二張則強調燈光和可見性。掌握空間的形狀，大小和連通性是第一步，而在此之后你需要像玩家那樣嘗試著玩看看，并思考“我要何時進入這一空間？該往哪走？敵人來自哪里？如果迷失了方向我該如何引導自己向前進？”

有關這些問題的兩大元素便是視線和燈光。你必須決定玩家在關卡的每個角度能夠看到什么，以及看不到或者看不清什么。舉個例子來說吧，如果玩家進入一個空間，并看到遠處墻上的兩扇門，那么是否其中一扇門比另一扇更加重要？玩家是否應該先進入其中一扇？也許你可以設置一個阻擋視線的障礙，如此他們便只能先看到其中的一扇門，并直到到達第一扇門時才能看到第二扇，如此他們便能順利進入第一扇門了。

如果光線的設置沒有差別的話，玩家便很難判斷哪個屬于優先選擇對象了。你可以通過聚光燈和陰影去突出重要的目標，從而讓玩家第一眼便注意到它。當你明確了流程，并幫助玩家瞄準重要的對象時，你便可以著手處理一些較小的細節元素，即在空間里添加各種內容。

Seth Marinello–當我完成了關卡布局后，我需要做的第一件事便是審視空間的大小和視線，從而進行可見性策略規劃。因為我們在《死亡空間》里所創造的環境非常精細，所以我們必須在初始階段基于性能而劃分空間。最糟糕的情況便是，在基于GPU完善一個復雜空間后幾個月我們才想起去劃分空間。

關于一些被忽視的問題，我發現在早期開發階段我們很難去明確游戲的節奏。沒有對話和腳本的關卡將顯得非常空洞，而反饋往往也是關于添加更多戰斗，最后便導致節奏問題一直被拖到最后還未能得到解決。我們必須意識到這一點并規劃好時間去處理這些問題。

我們的第二個問題是來自Twitter用戶@Skizomeuh：

2.為什么現在的hub導向游戲那么少（基于關卡設計）？就像《銀河戰士》或《Hexen》等游戲。

Neil Alphonso–簡單的來說是因為基于hub的關卡設計已經被開放世界所吞噬了。流式技術的發展以及藝術創造管道的完善都意味著關卡設計中許多限制因素得到了解決，從而實現了更加緊湊的游戲體驗。Rocksteady的《阿卡姆瘋人院》的發展便是非常典型的例子，即從hub導向向流線型開放世界模式而發展。當然了，現在也仍有設計師在使用hub導向原則，但是不可能像之前那么普遍了。

level_arkhamcity（from gamasutra）

Steve Gaynor–這個問題的答案源于不同層面–從技術上來看我們很難呈現出一個更開放且更自由的空間（基于視距，關卡流媒體技術等等）。基于設計角度來看還存在各種變量，因為你必須考慮“如果玩家從東部而非北部進入這個空間會怎樣？如果他們在清楚了下一個領域后又回去的話會怎樣？我該如何在一個開放的hub空間里引導他們走向下一個目標？”

hub導向的關卡設計非常明確，即傾向于玩家導向型探索，面向更“真實的”世界，并且因為你可以在玩家再次訪問時改變任何領域的狀態（而非延伸空間的面積），所以也具有內容再利用優勢。但是設計師需要做出一些投資才能順利完成這些設定。

Joel Burgess–我認為主要原因還是我們很難有效完成hub的創造。如果再次使用hub的話，你便需要投入大量時間去改變狀態，然后完善hub并對玩家的行動做出反應。你可以通過使用相同的布局而有效做到這一點。《天際》中的“Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary”和《輻射3》中的“Mothership Zeta”便是如此。

我認為《Splinter Cell: Double Agent》是一款非常優秀但卻被埋沒了的hub導向型游戲。這款游戲解決了創造hub的問題，即將其更好地與游戲玩法融合在一起并作為NPC的存在空間。

我們的下一個問題是來自日本東京的@DCharlieJP：

3.關卡設計師知道游戲引擎的局限性嗎？他們將如何在設計過程中解決這一問題？

Steve Gaynor–引擎的技術限制將定義我們作為關卡設計師能夠做的一切事情。

而如何解決這些問題取決于你所使用的技術的狀態—-如果你使用的是一個穩定且已建立的引擎，那么你所面對的局限性便會更加清楚，并且是從一開始自上而下地發展；如果在設計過程中技術也組裝好了，那么程序員和設計師之間的交流便能更加順暢，但是如果你不知道面對著何種局限性，那么便會遭遇更多不確定元素和挫折。

作為關卡設計師，你的部分工作便是提供幫助去超越技術上的局限性，并發現真正可行的方法，從而明確在引擎最終穩定后哪些局限性問題能夠得到徹底解決。

Jim Brown–如果關卡設計師不清楚他們的引擎的能力，那么該項目便岌岌可危。任何項目最后的優化過程都是最復雜的，但是如果設計師缺少理解力便有可能創造出一些難以被接受且屬于范圍之外的內容（并導致不得不重新設計）；如此便會浪費預算，浪費時間和精力。

你必須在框架內進行設計，即確保你的團隊和引擎都有制作能力，并且你還必須始終牢記所有目標，即使是在原型創建過程中。當然了，你需要先確保項目目標獲得了所有團隊成員的肯定。

基于Gears，我們可以使用UE3進行設計，所以我們事先便清楚自己想要高級著色器和多樣性角色。作為一個團隊，我們同意使用第三人稱視角并舍棄“近距離”戰斗，以此突出這些引擎功能。顯然這將影響著整體的設計，并深刻影響著屏幕上的敵人數量，建筑規模以及相關腳本。

Neil Alphonso–關卡設計師必須熟悉其游戲引擎的內在運作，但是技術發展的快節奏卻讓他們很難做到這一點。而這也是需要在整個團隊進行共享的責任；技術負責人需要為關卡和資產創造提供指南，關卡設計師需要為游戲提供符合環境視覺保真度的布局，而設計師則需要盡可能保證高質量并達到高幀率的目標。

在現代開發中，工具的使用能夠幫助設計師們更輕松地做到這些，而自動過程也能幫助他們在問題還未太糟糕之前落實解決。設計師必須在原型創建過程中先解決任何機制上的風險，否則它們將滲入到整體的游戲中，并最終導致開發資源的浪費。

下一個問題是來自游戲產業專家，同時也是Kabam的總經理Mike Sellers：

4.工具和參數：你是如何知道玩家是否喜歡關卡，他們不會迷失于其中或受挫？對此還有許多解決方法，但是很多人都不清楚這些玩法。

Joel Burgess–盡早且頻繁地將關卡呈現在玩家面前，并觀察他們游戲。不要等到關卡優化完或者發行商/制作人等安排測試時才這么做。挑選某些人并讓他們面對一些設置或引導較少的關卡。鼓勵他們在游戲過程中暢所欲言。而你則不能干擾他們，不要提供任何幫助或進行糾正。除非絕對必要，否則請忽視所有直接的問題。

你從玩家身上所獲得的未經過濾的反饋將是最好的指明燈，將幫助你更好地應對各種內部參數。

Jim Brown–最簡單的答案便是關注并觀察。盡管這聽起來很簡單，但是很多設計師卻經常會忽視這一點。設計師總是會因為過度沉迷于自己的工作而忽略了其它元素。幾年前我曾經說過，設計師的工作是“成為玩家的擁護者”，而不是創造自己喜歡的事物，或忽略玩家在體驗游戲時所扮演的角色。你是在為他們創造游戲而不是自己！

也就是說，可用性測試，焦點小組，熱圖，狀態追蹤等分析工具都非常有效，設計師最好能夠在適當時候加以利用。他們也可以多花些時間去掌握基本的心理學原理。人類的大腦非常奇特，并且不一定會按照我們所理解的方式而運轉。設計師需要觀看別人是如何玩自己的游戲，并抱著虛心的態度。了解玩家的想法才能幫助你成為更加出色的設計師。

Neil Alphonso–最省錢的方法便是觀看其他人玩游戲，并做下記錄。如今許多工作室甚至使用生物辨識數據從各種測試中挖掘更多有用的信息。在過去幾年里追蹤參數的工具有了很大的改善，并且如果目標是更大規模的用戶，那么設計師定能獲得更加客觀的信息。Valve面向《半條命2》和《軍團要塞2》所做出的改變都是基于Steam的參數。

下一個問題是來自@Jeremy LaMont：

5.當你想要獲得玩家的關注時，你會使用何種策略？或者只是“讓他們自己到處走”？

Steve Gaynor–我更傾向于讓玩家“到處走”。但是如果你真的想要引導玩家前往一個特定的地點，你就需要想辦法吸引他們的注意力了。

這也是我在今年的GDC大會上關于LDIAD教程的演講“Narrative Techniques for Storytelling in Level Design”所強調的內容。關于這點有很多很棒的方法：使用燈光和影子去突出重要的對象，刪除周邊地區任何不相干的內容，有針對性地設置玩家的前進道路，從而讓他們可以直接走向最重要的內容。

你肯定希望清楚且集中地呈現出最重要的內容，從而讓玩家清楚并樂意接近這一內容，而不是讓玩家感覺是設計師強迫他們這么做的。

Joel Burgess–你可以采取多種方法去呈現緊急的暗示，如選擇合適的音樂，采用漏斗式布局方法或最小化那些有可能讓玩家分心的元素。

關卡設計師必須清楚，玩家在看到一個較亮的對象的同時又發現遠方出現了可愛的場景時會是怎樣的感受。

面對這種情境他們首先需要做的便是明確是否該采取某種做法。計時器，UI提示，過場動畫和其它設備都能夠吸引玩家的注意，但同時他們也必須清楚不同玩家也會做出不同的選擇，就像有些玩家需要引導，而有些玩家更在乎光亮。雖然迷失方向或困惑會讓玩家受挫，但是粗率的關卡設計也會讓他們倍感失望。

Neil Alphonso–我所使用的主要工具是密度，即：對象的密度，移動的密度，或者互動性的密度等等。我發現這是告訴玩家他們正待在一個“重要的”地方的好方法。同時這也能用于維持一些間接引導方法；你該如何引導玩家是取決于整體游戲及其創造性方向，而不是基于一個特定的關卡。這也是為何我們經常在影片或UI中傳達一些重要事件的主要原因。

如果你給予玩家錯失重要信息的機會，那么許多玩家便都有可能走上這條道路。這并不能怪玩家不留意，而是你根本不知道玩家在玩游戲時會因為哪些內容分心。

我們的下一個問題是來自Full Sail的畢業生@MrDonaldYoung：

6.你會多久讓玩家離開一次黃金之路，并且是否需要其它資源去完成這一設置？

Steve Gaynor–這么做是必要的。游戲的靈魂就在于互動性，而互動性便意味著任何玩家都不可能擁有相同的游戲體驗。如果你能夠在不同玩家的游戲體驗中添加更多差異性，那么他們便更能感受到彼此間的聯系，例如他們會想“我決定到那里，我決定探索這個額外的空間，我發現一些別人沒做過的事。”

作為一個主要路徑以及擁有各種選擇的空間，你必須讓玩家能夠在此深入挖掘并思考。如果你認為非主要路徑空間的制作成本是基于“我們創造了多少玩家看不到的內容”，你大可以去創造一些強制性內容，確保每個玩家所面對的體驗都是相同的，如此便沒人會“錯過”任何內容了。如果你認為可選擇空間帶給玩家的自我引導，投資，探索和發現都屬于內在且無形的價值，那么整體的游戲體驗將比你在電子數據表上所確定的更加完善。

Joel Burgess–我個人的選擇是在任何可能時機包含一些不必要的內容。這既能獎勵那些付諸探索的玩家，也能讓游戲世界更加真實，即更加傾向于玩家及其故事。幸運的是，Bethesda旗下90%的游戲都未提供黃金之路，我們總是將資源花費在一些不重要的內容上。這便是我們的游戲所呈現出的部分感覺，不過不同游戲所面臨的情況也不同。

level_deadspace（from gamasutra）

Seth Marinello–我會盡可能頻繁地這么做。如果游戲能夠提供給玩家更多機遇去獲得獨特的體驗，讓他們感覺自己找到了一些特別的事物，那么玩家便會更加重視游戲。

在為《死亡空間》設定關卡時，我嘗試著包含了兩種類型的選擇內容，即“財寶口袋”和“測試房間。”首先便是有關探索的獎勵；假設我設定了一條很長的走廊，但是通道只有一半的路程，那么我便需要在最后設定一些有趣的內容而吸引玩家。通過獎勵去推翻空間中的種種界線，你便可以將一個死胡同變成新發現。

測試房間就如其名，是一個獨特且不同于關卡通道的空間。我嘗試著利用這些房間去擴展世界，讓玩家感覺到世界的真實性—-這也是我為何要在我們的奇幻關卡中設置像廣場，浴室，洗衣店等來自人類領域的內容的重要原因。

我們的下個問題是來自電子游戲記者，同時也是翻譯家的@andymonza：

7.重玩價值vs.過場動畫。真的能將這兩個者整合在同一個游戲體驗中嗎？

Jim Brown–當然了，但這也意味著設計師必須放棄部分控制（但這卻不一定是件壞事！），并且需要可靠的系統（游戲邦注：即基于靈活的腳本，強大的AI以及巧妙的世界建造等等）去保持新鮮的游戲體驗。《戰爭機器：審判》使用S3（智能生成系統）而隨機創造敵人并改變每次生成的地點，《求生之路》使用Director去控制節奏，《天際》能夠避免游戲世界中各種遭遇的重復——這些只是眾多例子中的一小部分，并且每一款游戲都還在使用動畫和腳本序列（盡管少于其它游戲）。

我認為，將控制權交回玩家手上是一種很棒的設置，并且能夠讓玩家按照自己的想法去創造游戲故事。而《行尸走肉》之所以擁有較高的重玩價值是因為它并未將玩家束縛在唯一的前進道路上。

Neil Alphonso–如果能夠提供可略過的過場動畫的話，自然再好不過。

關鍵在于過場動畫的內容總是不夠靈活，因為它們主要是來自被動的媒體形式。電影機制和游戲機制是完全不同的兩回事，如果將它們強行組裝在一起只會弄巧成拙。因為重玩價值通常都是源自機制的深度和多樣性，所以重玩價值和過場動畫并不相配。

所以真的有可能將其整合到一塊嗎？是的，但是在傳統的AAA級游戲中我們很難做到這一點。不過有時候，傳統也是用來打破的不是嗎！

Seth Marinello–對于大多數基于故事的游戲來說，過場動畫是非常重要的一部分內容，但是它們卻經常違背了靈活的游戲玩法這一理念。有些工作室嘗試著創造分支過場動畫去維持力量感，但是這么做的代價卻非常昂貴，且不一定總是能成功。作為設計師和故事創造者，我認為設計師最好能夠以受玩家驅動的方法去傳達這些信息，如果這點失敗后再將過場動畫與游戲玩法維系起來。我們總是會利用各種機會而創造出相對應的過場動畫去呈現主角所控制不了的其它事件。基于這一方法，我們并不需要玩家做出任何決定。

Kyttaro Games的@gnomeslair問道：

8.你們是如何使用相同的元素去呈現出完全不同的游戲結果？

Joel Burgess–在像《天際》和《輻射3》這樣大型的游戲，我們就必須盡可能有效利用每一個元素。

我們必須抹去任何有關該如何使用某一元素的先行觀念。抵制誘惑，從未將一個特定的設置類型與特定的遭遇或游戲類型維系起來。如果你能夠混合更多元素，你便有可能發現更多多樣性潛能。

基于這種期望，你便能夠鼓勵自己和團隊從一個更開放的角度去思考如何執行各種機制，圖像資產等等內容。這便意味著你的功能設置將更有活力并能夠驗證各種漏洞。

Seth Marinello–從游戲玩法的角度來看，創造出玩家能夠理解的模式并以不同形式體現出來能夠有效地傳達出樂趣體驗。你需要創造出玩家能夠精通的任務，然后進一步延伸以提供更加復雜的挑戰—-《傳送門》便是基于這種設計。

Jim Brown–隨著技術的不斷完善，做到這一點已經不是什么難事了。更高的分辨率以及更好的材料意味著我們能夠基于不同方式規劃，循環并再次使用相同模式。更多多邊形模型以及完善的渲染工具也意味著我們可以添加更多細節到不同模型領域中，以不同方式將其呈現出來。

最后，我認為獲得好結果的最好方法便是真正理解現實世界的建造和心理學原理——如果你能夠呈現出一些看起來“真實”或者符合“常規”的內容，人們便會下意識地接受它。對于關卡設計師來說，將關卡與有限的資源整合在一起將變成有趣的謎題，或者游戲本身。

倒數第二個問題是來自職業玩家兼游戲制作人Kal Shah：

9.制作人是如何幫助關卡設計師分擔工作，并完善整體過程？

Steve Gaynor–作為制作人的最大優點便是為團隊的人掃除障礙而去做最有價值的事。設計師們可能面臨的阻礙是：沒有空間能夠添加游戲玩法；缺少支持關卡的圖像資產；沒有適當的機制去確保關卡的可玩性。所以如果設計師，制作人和其它部門人員可以進行開放交流，他們便能說：“我想要執行第一關的獵槍戰斗，但是獵槍的敵人卻不具功能性，”或者“我需要圍繞著墜落的直升機創建游戲玩法，但是我卻不知道它的大小”，如此便能夠幫助其它部門人員更有效地規劃工作。

除此之外，制作人也可以推動關卡設計師去掃清各種障礙——例如基于Maya授權和來自環境設計師的簡短教程，關卡設計師便可以在等待真正模型的過程中創建一個臨時模型；或者與程序員合作去運行腳本，從而讓管家設計師能夠基于腳本創建新功能的原型，而無需等到代碼的完成。這不僅能幫設計師與其它部門的工作人員更好的進行溝通，同時也能讓他們更加自立，有效完善生產力并推翻種種障礙。

Seth Marinello–制作人可以采取兩種方法去幫助關卡設計師，第一種方法便是作為不同團體之間的接口–每個關卡都要經歷從簡單到完善的發展，設計師需要投入大量時間去整合各種內容并追蹤每個組件的發展過程。如果制作人能夠承擔這些工作，那么設計師便擁有更多時間去迭代游戲玩法和性能腳本。第二種方法便是提供給設計師有用的意見。在設計過程中，設計師很容易忽略掉怎樣的體驗才是最適合終端用戶，而制作人便能夠幫助他們在進行測試前找出問題所在。

Neil Alphonso–對于許多開發工作來說，關卡便是最后的目的地；即我們經常說關卡是“檢驗行動的開始。”所以制作人在關卡設計過程中能夠提供的最重要的幫助便是確保組件的即時交付，從而讓關卡設計師能夠有效地完成工作。隨時提供臨時交付內容也很重要，因為這能幫助關卡設計師更快速地面向不斷發展的內容而調整相應關卡。如果交付對象是圖像資產的話就難辦了，因為圖像設計師是不會提交任何“未完成”的內容。所以制作人需要確保交付途徑能夠包含許多整合階段，即確保圖像內容的創造不會阻礙關卡的設計。

我們的最后一個問題是來自育碧的關卡設計師Myles Kerwin：

10.我想知道關卡設計師在過去十年里取得了怎樣的發展，并且你們認為在接下來的時間又會出現怎樣的變化。

Jim Brown–我認為關卡設計是一種瀕臨滅絕的技術。關卡設計理念是伴隨著在線游戲而出現。人們至始至終都能夠創造獨立的關卡。一開始我們需要自己完成所有工作，包括創造紋理，編寫程序，撰寫腳本，設計，設置燈光和路徑等等！而最近的游戲公司開始將這些任務分配到特定人員手上，即出現了燈光專家，技術設計師，編劇，游戲玩法設計師，可用性專家等等。

而關卡設計師也變成了特定領域的專家，即專攻于謎題設置。隨著界限越來越模糊，也許以后我們將很難再明確“關卡”的設定了。現在的關卡設計師還必須掌握如何整合各種相關系統。可以說，我們不僅不能再變回一般技術師，同時我們還需要擴展技能組合去適應整體的游戲設計，即包含關卡，生物，武器，戰斗，視覺效果，腳本，性能可用性等等。

Seth Marinello–在過去十年里，關卡設計工作的最大改變便是從畫筆過度到靜態模型。從《雷神戰錘》一直到早前基于Source引擎的游戲，關卡設計師都還是扮演著環境設計師的角色。從那以后我們便放下了許多編輯工作而專注于3D模型編程，如Maya。如此我們的游戲視覺效果也得到了很大的完善，但同時也徹底改變了關卡設計師在這一過程中的角色。現在的我們不只是創造者，同時也是整個團隊對于關卡的看法的收集者。后來的幾年我們見證了許多帶有開放環境的游戲取得了巨大的成功，我也希望在今后幾年里關卡設計師能夠更加側重實驗而非依賴于腳本。

Joel Burgess–當我最初對關卡設計產生興趣時，這還是一項單人工作。早前的制圖人需要創造出關卡的每個元素，從布局到燈光再到腳本。但是在幾年后，即當我真正進入這個產業時，這種情況便發生了改變。那時候，像PS2和Xbox等主機要求更高的視覺保真度，并且開發工具也比之前更高級更復雜。關卡設計變成了一個更加分散的過程，即通常需要2至3個人扮演著某一特定的角色。

那些不喜歡過度專業化分類的人會認為這一發展前景十分暗淡。雖然我知道設計師更希望專注于腳本或布局工作，但是我個人更愿意涉及游戲開發的所有工作，并且我也發現那些全能的關卡設計師總是能夠將許多不相干的元素組成最出色的游戲玩法。而專攻于某一領域則不能培養出這種全能型關卡設計師。

我認為現在的我們正處在游戲和關卡設計的頂端。在保真度不斷提升的同時，各種類型和規模的游戲也迎來了更加廣闊的發展空間。這對于所有關卡設計師來說都是個好消息，因為不管擁有怎樣的技能和興趣，你都能找到一款最適合自己的游戲類型，并在此發揮作為關卡設計師的所長。

（本文為游戲邦/gamerboom.com編譯，拒絕任何不保留版權的轉載，如需轉載請聯系：游戲邦）

Level Design in a Day: Your Questions, Answered

by Coray Seifert

For the past five years, the Level Design in a Day crew has gathered in the hallowed halls of the Game Developers Conference to discuss all things level design. This year, the fine folks at Gamasutra offered us an awesome opportunity to interface with a much broader audience than the few hundred folks that usually attend the session by doing a Q&A with the game development community at large.

To that end, we’ve brought together a panel of esteemed Level Design experts, hand-picked from the roster of this year’s AAA Level Design in a Day Bootcamp — which runs all day on Tuesday, March 26. They’ve agreed to answer the Gamasutra community’s questions in the form of this roundtable feature.

Neil Alphonso: Lead Designer – Splash Damage

Jim Brown: Lead Level Designer – Epic Games

Joel Burgess: Senior Designer – Bethesda Game Studios

Steve Gaynor: Co-Founder – The Fullbright Company

Seth Marinello: Level Designer – EA / Visceral Games

(Editor) Coray Seifert: Vice President, Product Development – Slingo

While many of these questions are specifically focused on the craft of level design, there are a number of great quandaries that delve into broader production concerns, tools development, and engine limitations.

I always say that level design is applied game design. It is both a hyper-specialized craft and a broader study of the intersection of technology, mechanics and largely intangible fun. Thus, there are some great learnings in this feature — and in our GDC tutorial offerings — no matter what game development discipline you may come from.

Our first question comes from Bloomfield College Game Design student Roger Rosa:

1. What are common mistakes or key things level designers look for after the first pass of a level is finished? What are some common flaws in level design that tend to be overlooked?

Jim Brown – The two main things I tend to look out for are sloppiness and poor assumptions on the part of the LD. The vast majority of bugs in scripting, cover, collision, and general level design happen because someone gets complacent or rushes through the “boring” parts of design. If you have good attention to detail and treat every aspect of the level as important, then you’ll be much better off (faster, cleaner, easier) in the long run.

Secondly, LDs sometimes build a level assuming that the player will proceed through it in the same manner that the LD who built it will get through it. Just because you’ve played it 500 times doesn’t mean the end user has, and they will be facing backwards at the wrong moment, hit triggers out of order, go the wrong way, and break your level in every way imaginable. First pass maps tend to be very “golden path” and quickly fall apart when the systems are stressed. Aside from that, we sometimes just need to “get things working” so first pass maps do just that… and then need massive optimizations in performance, memory, pacing, and difficulty.

Steve Gaynor – For me, the first pass is layout and flow, the second pass is lighting and visibility. Knowing the shape, size, and connectivity of spaces is a good first step, but as soon after this as possible, you need to start playing through like a player would and think, “When I enter this space, how do I know where to go? How do I know where enemies might be coming from? How do I orient myself if I get turned around and lose my way?”

The two biggest aspects of these issues are sightlines and lighting. You have to determine what the player can see from each point in the level, and what is occluded. For instance, if you enter a space and you can see two doors on the far wall, is one more important than the other? Is the player supposed to enter one first? Maybe set up a sight blocker so they only see one door first, and can’t see the second one until they’ve reached the first one, and so in all likelihood will go in there first instead of skipping it. Can I see entrances, egresses, and important objects?

If the lighting is too even, nothing is prioritized. Look at how you can throw spotlights and shadows around to highlight important things, so the player can get a lay of the land on first glance. Once you have the flow laid out, and a good idea of what the player’s visual understanding of the major concepts in the spaces will be, you’re in a good position to move on to smaller nuts-and-bolts aspects of placing incidentals in each room.

Seth Marinello – Once I have a white box layout of the level complete, one of the first things I will do is review the room sizes and sightlines in order to plan out our visibility strategy. Since the environments we create for Dead Space are so high-detail, it is very important we get a handle on how the space can be divided for performance at an early stage. One of the worst things that can happen is having to slice a room in half after months of trying force an over-complex space through the GPU.

As to overlooked problems, I find pacing can be hard to read early in development. Without dialog and scripted moments, a level can feel empty and the feedback tends to add more combat, resulting in pacing problems once the rest of the content comes online. It is important to be aware of this and schedule polish time to address these issues.

Our second question comes from Twitter user @Skizomeuh:

2. Why are there so few hub-oriented games (in terms of level design) nowadays? I’m thinking of games like Metroid Prime or Hexen.

Neil Alphonso – The short answer is that hub-based level design has essentially been eaten by open worlds. Advances in streaming technology and improved art creation pipelines have meant that many of the constraints that originally put the “level” in “level design” are dissolving away, allowing for more seamless experiences. A perfect example of this is the evolution from Rocksteady’s Arkham Asylum, which is hub-based, to the streaming, open world model of Arkham City. Many of the principles of hub-based level design still apply, but ultimately not as much backtracking is required.

Steve Gaynor – The answers to this come on all different axes — it can be harder technically to allow for more open, free-flowing spaces (based on view distance, level streaming tech, and so forth). There are also many more variables from a design perspective, since you have to consider “What if the player comes into this space from the east instead of north? What happens if they backtrack after clearing the next area? How do I direct them to their next goal when the space is an open hub instead of a hallway?”

The benefits of hub-based level design are clear — much more player-directed exploration, a more “real-feeling” world, and the advantages of content reuse since you can change the state of an area when the player revisits it, instead of having to build more square footage. But it takes a few specific kinds of investment to pull it off.

Joel Burgess – I think the main reason may just be that hubs are tough to pull off well. Revisiting a hub can get stale fast — you may end up spending a great deal of time implementing state changes and otherwise having the hub evolve and react to player actions. That work can end up overwhelming any savings you may have gained by reusing the same layout. We ran into this with both the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary in Skyrim and Mothership Zeta in Fallout 3, for example.

For what it’s worth, one current-gen, hub-based game that I think is unsung is Splinter Cell: Double Agent. This game also solves a sticky problem of crafting a hub which accommodates gameplay as well as being a convincing living space for NPCs.

Our next question is from @DCharlieJP in Tokyo, Japan:

3. How aware are level designers of the limitation of the game engine? How is this factored in and/or communicated in the design process?

Steve Gaynor – Oh, very aware. The technical constraints of the engine define everything you can do as a level designer.

How it’s factored in depends a lot on what state the tech is in — if you’re working with a stable, established engine, your constraints can be much more clear and top-down from the beginning; if the tech is still being assembled while the game is being designed, the dialogue between programming and design is more fluid, but can also be more uncertain and frustrating, if you don’t know exactly what your constraints are.

But on some level, part of your job as an LD in this case is to help push the limits of the tech, and discover what it’s capable of as well as what you would LIKE it to be capable of, in order to help figure out what the constraints will end up being when the engine does stabilize.

Jim Brown – If LDs aren’t fully aware of their engine’s capabilities, the project is at an extreme disadvantage. The last bit of polish at the end of any project is usually the most difficult — and that’s always expected — but a lack of understanding that leads to building something entirely out of scope (or otherwise causes major redesigns) is unacceptable and wasteful; it can kill budgets, schedules, and careers.

You have to build within the framework of what your team and engine are capable of producing, and you have to keep those goals in mind even when prototyping. And of course, you have to ensure that project goals are aligned across the entire team.

With Gears, for example, we were just starting in on UE3, so we knew up front that we wanted advanced shaders and high-poly characters. As a group we agreed on a third person camera and close “intimate” combat distances to highlight those engine features. That obviously influenced design across the board, and had to be kept in mind at all times as it affected the number of enemies on screen, scale of architecture, and encounter scripting in big ways.

Neil Alphonso – Level designers need to be as familiar with the inner workings of their game engine as they can be, but the pace of technological change can make this very difficult! In the end, this is a responsibility that needs to be shared throughout the team; the tech leads need to provide guidelines for level and asset creation, the level designers need to provide a layout that can marry this with the environmental visual fidelity targets for the game, and the artists need to push as much quality as they can within that and still hit framerate goals.

Tools have made this somewhat easier in modern development, as automated processes can flag any problematic areas before it gets too painful to change them. Anything mechanically risky really needs to be addressed in a prototype well before production, because unless it is or becomes something that is used game-wide, the chances of development resources being dedicated to it for such isolated use are significantly lessened.

The next question comes from games industry veteran and Kabam General Manager, Mike Sellers:

4. Tools and Metrics: How do you know how players like the level, aren’t getting lost, frustrated, etc? There are some good solutions for this but they’re also unknown for a lot of people (even pros).

Joel Burgess – As early and as often as possible, get people in front of the level and watch them play it. Don’t wait for the level to be polished or for your publisher/producer/whomever to arrange a playtest session. Grab somebody and sit them down with as little setup or guidance as possible. Encourage them to vocalize as they play. Then: Shut up. Don’t interrupt, don’t help, don’t correct. Ignore direct questions unless absolutely necessary.

The unfiltered feedback you get from players will always be the best guiding light, and will often help you win internal arguments you had already been having.

Jim Brown – The simplest answer is to watch and pay attention. And while that sounds obvious, it’s probably the most overlooked. It’s not uncommon for designers to get too attached to their work. If you’re too involved or too invested, you tend to lose sight of the bigger picture. A few years ago in my LDIAD talk I mentioned that the designer’s job is to “be an advocate for the player” — you can’t just build things that you like, or lose sight of what the player’s role is in experiencing your game. You’re building for them, not yourself!

That said, usability testing, focus groups, heat maps, stat tracking, and any other number of analytical tools are incredibly useful and should be employed whenever possible. It’s also well worth the time to read up on some basic psychology. The human brain is a crazy thing, and doesn’t always work the way you would assume. Watch as other people play through your work, and keep an open mind. Getting into the head of the average gamer will make you a better designer.

Neil Alphonso – The lowest-cost method is simply watching somebody play, and diligently taking notes! Many studios even now use biometric data to help mine more useful information out of these sorts of tests. Tools for tracking metrics on a large scale have improved significantly over the years however, and can provide much more clinical information when a big enough audience sample size is provided. Valve’s changes to Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 that have been based on Steam metrics have shown that with enough actionable information, frustration points (or “shelf moments”) can be lessened significantly.

5. How do you change your approach when you want a player to PAY ATTENTION or GO HERE DIRECTLY versus “It’s okay to wander around”?

Steve Gaynor – I definitely tend toward allowing as much “it’s okay to wander around” time as possible. But if you really, truly need to direct the player to one specific point (for tutorialization or whatever) it’s all about generating focus.

This is what a lot of my talk on “Narrative Techniques for Storytelling in Level Design” is going to be about at the LDIAD tutorial at GDC this year. There are a number of best practices: Use spotlighting and silhouetting to highlight important objects, remove any extraneous interactive objects from the surrounding area, arrange the player’s path so they walk head-on into the important part of the scene, and many others.

You basically want the important stuff front-and-center and clearly visible, so the player will be aware of it and engage with it willingly, instead of being “forced” to do so by the designer.

Joel Burgess – There are many ways you can communicate urgency cues subtly, like choosing appropriate music, incorporating funneling elements into your layout or minimizing elements that may distract the player. Sometimes it’s not enough.

Level designers everywhere understand the discomfort of watching players examine a light fixture while a lovingly scripted scene plays out a few feet off-screen.

The first thing to do in these situations is to determine whether you should actually do anything at all. Timers, UI prompts, cutscenes and other devices can help direct attention, but know the difference between a player that needs guidance and one that simply cares more about that cool light fixture. Being lost and confused as a player can be frustrating, but heavy-handed level design is always frustrating.

Neil Alphonso – My main tool for this is density, which can take many forms: it can be density of objects, density of movement, or density of interactivity, and that’s just to name a few! I find it a good way to subtly tell a player that they’re in an “important” place. But this method is used to maintain a decidedly indirect method of directing a player; how heavy-handed you can be with directing the player is more down to the game or creative direction of the entire game, rather than how it is handled in a given level. It’s why essential events are often conveyed during cinematics or with UI.

If you give the player the chance to miss what you deem as critical information, chances are that many of them will indeed miss it! This isn’t because players are unobservant, but more because you never know what distractions a given player might have when they’re playing the game.

Our next question is from Full Sail graduate @MrDonaldYoung:

6. How often should you create situations for the player to go off the golden path, and is it worth the extra resources to do so?

Steve Gaynor – It’s absolutely worth it. The soul of games is interactivity, and interactivity means that no two players are going to have precisely the same play experience. The more variance you can add between two players’ experience of your game, the more of a personal connection they’ll feel — “I decided to go here, I decided to explore this extra space, I found something that other people didn’t.”

Having as minor a crit path as possible, and as much optional space as possible, gives the player much more to dig into and think about and own for themselves. If you think of the production cost of non-crit path space in terms of “look how much content we’re building that the player might never see!” you can easily talk yourself into making everything mandatory, every player’s experience the same, so no one “misses” anything. But if you think of the inherent, intangible value of the feelings of self-direction, investment, exploration and discovery that optional spaces provide the player, the overall experience is improved much more than you can easily quantify on a spreadsheet.

Joel Burgess – My personal preference is to include non-essential content whenever possible. This rewards players who explore, but it also helps make the world feel less artificially focused on the player and her story. Luckily for me, about 90 percent of any Bethesda game is off the golden path, so we’re used to spending resources on non-essential content. That’s part of the feel of our games, though; your situation may vary.

Seth Marinello – The basic answer is as often as possible. The more opportunities for players to have a unique experience, to feel like they found something special, the more important the game will be to them.

When laying out a level for Dead Space I try to include two kinds of optional content — “treasure pockets” and “beta rooms.” The first is simply a reward for exploring; if I have a long hallway, for example, and the alpha flow only takes the player halfway down it, there should be something interesting at the far end, even if it is a pickup. By rewarding pushing the boundaries of the space, you can turn a dead end into a discovery.

Beta rooms are exactly what they sound like, a space that is both unique and separate from the alpha path of the level. I try to make these rooms build out the world more, make it feel inhabited — this is why I tend to build in human spaces like quarters, bathrooms, and laundry facilities to our sci-fi levels.

Our next question comes from video games journalist and translator @andymonza:

7. Replay value vs. cinematic sequences (usually from heavy scripting). Is it truly possible to make the two coexist in the same experience?

Jim Brown – Absolutely — but it means that the designers have to give up on a bit of their control (which is not necessarily a bad thing!) and you have to have reliable systems (flexible scripting, strong AI, smart world building, etc.) in place to keep the experience fresh. Gears of War: Judgment uses S3 (Smart Spawn System) to randomize enemies and change spawn locations in every encounter, Left4Dead uses the Director to control pacing, Skyrim has a matrix of possibilities that avoids repetition in world encounters — and these are just a few examples. Each of those titles still makes use of cinematics and scripted sequences, albeit less frequently than other titles.

In my personal opinion, this is an incredibly great thing as it puts the control back in the hands of the player, and allows them to make the game story more uniquely their own. Even The Walking Dead has a heavy use of cinematics paired with high replay value because they don’t tie their players down to one single path that must be adhered to.

Neil Alphonso – If the cinematics are skippable, then yes!

The key issue is that cinematic content isn’t flexible, because it borrows so heavily from what is a passive form of media. The mechanics of what makes film work and what makes games work are fundamentally different, and trying to marry them at a base level often ends in tears. As replay value most often comes from mechanical depth and variety, this can truly be an odd coupling!

So is it possible? Yes, but in a traditional triple-A sense this is a hard battle to justify fighting. But sometimes, traditions are made to be broken!

Seth Marinello – Cinematics are an important part of most narrative-driven games still, but they are inherently counter to the idea of flexible gameplay solutions. Some studios have invested in creating branching cinematic moments to try and maintain a sense of agency but this tends to be expensive and not always successful. As designers and storytellers I think this energy is better focused on finding ways to convey the same information in a more player-driven manner, and when that is impossible to use cinematics as a bridge between gameplay moments. Whenever we can, we try to make scripted moments be in response to some event outside of the protagonist’s control. That way we don’t have the character making decisions without the player’s input.

Kyttaro Games’ @gnomeslair asks:

8. How do you reuse similar elements for vastly different gameplay results?

Joel Burgess – With games as big as Skyrim and Fallout 3, it’s very important that we’re able to make effective use (and re-use) of every element at our disposal. This is a big part of the topic I’ll be covering during our LDiaD session at GDC, in fact.

One good thing to do is to try and erase any preconceived notions of how elements should be used. Resist the temptation to strongly associate a specific setting type with a specific encounter or gameplay type. The more that you enable yourself to mix and match these elements, the more potential variety exists for you to discover.

By setting this expectation internally, you also encourage yourself and the team to think in more open terms about how you’ll implement various mechanics, art assets, and the like. This means your feature set will (hopefully) be more robust and bug-proof overall.

Seth Marinello – From a gameplay standpoint, creating patterns that the player will understand and then dressing those in different guises is key to delivering a fun experience. You need to create tasks which the player can master, and then ramp them to provide further challenge — Portal is a textbook example of this kind of design. As others have mentioned, this is a topic that we will cover in more depth at this year’s LDiaD session.

Jim Brown – This has definitely gotten easier as technology has improved. Higher resolution textures and better materials mean we can scale, rotate, and reuse models in different ways without them looking too similar. Higher poly models and improved rendering means we can add more detail to different areas of the models, and then light them differently to vary how they appear.

Ultimately, however, I think the best way to get good results here is to have an understanding of real world architecture and psychology — if something looks “real” or appears “normal” people will subconsciously accept much more than you’d think. There’s a certain amount (and style) of repetition that happens in nature, and a general look to shapes and structures that the brain will accept without too much filtering. For the LD, putting together a level with limited resources becomes a fun puzzle, or game of its own.

Our penultimate question comes from pro gamer and game producer Kal Shah:

9. What things can a producer do to make the job of a level designer easier and improve the process as a whole?

Steve Gaynor – The biggest benefit of production is making sure that no one is blocked from doing the most valuable work they could be doing right now. The kinds of things that block designers are: Not having a space built that they need to put gameplay into; not having art assets that their level will be based around; not having mechanics in place that are required to make their level playable. So having open communication between design, production, and the other departments to be able to say, “I need to be implementing the first pass of the shotgun fight, but the shotgun enemies aren’t functional yet,” or, “I need to build gameplay around the crashed helicopter, but I don’t know what its dimensions are” will help other departments prioritize their work.

But aside from just giving other people work, it can be even more useful for production to facilitate ways for level designers to unblock themselves — for instance, providing a Maya license and a brief tutorial with an environment artist, so that an LD can model a temp mesh while they wait for the real one; or working with programming to get script actions so that the LD can prototype new functionality through scripting instead of waiting for completed code. Helping designers communicate better with other departments, but also be more self-sufficient, will improve productivity and reduce blockers.

Seth Marinello – There are two major ways a producer can aid the level design process. The first is as an interface between groups – as a level goes from white box to final, lots of content needs to be integrated and tracking the progress of each component can take a lot of time. If there is a producer there than can do that legwork and ensure progress is getting made on the key assets the designer is free to iterate on gameplay and performance scripting. The second is as an external sounding board for design. It is easy to get too close to a design and lose sight of what the experience will be like for an end-user, a producer can help catch issues BEFORE your work goes through the focus test wringer.

Neil Alphonso — Levels are the final destination for a lot of development work; an often-used phrase is that levels are “where the rubber hits the road.” Because of this, the most critical thing a producer can do to help the level design process is to ensure timely delivery of the components that make up the level designer’s work. It’s also important to provide interim deliverables whenever possible, as this helps the level designer to more quickly adapt the level to the evolving content. This can be particularly tricky with art assets, as artists can be notorious for not submitting something that is “unfinished.” Ensuring that the pipeline includes many phases of integration as art content is being made ends up being hugely effective risk mitigation for unforeseen complications hampering a well-playing level.

Our final question comes from Ubisoft level designer Myles Kerwin, via the Level Design in a Day Facebook Group.

10. I’d like to hear about how Level Design has evolved over the past decade, and how you think it will change in the years to come.

Jim Brown – I think that level design — in the classic sense — is an endangered craft. The concept of level design first came into being with the advent of online gaming. People could make self-contained levels that they worked on from beginning to end. We made our own textures, did our own programming, scripting, design, lighting, pathing… everything! More recently, companies have separated that work out among many specific talents: lighting specialists, tech artists, scripters, gameplay designers, usability experts, and everything in between.

As such, LDs became micro-specialists who were very good at one piece of the puzzle. Moving forward, it will be harder and harder to identify what a “level” is as the lines get blurred. There are so many systems involved now that you have to understand how they all work together. I bet we’ll not only go back to being generalists, but actually expand our skill sets into general game design – levels, creatures, weapons, combat, visuals, scripting, performance, usability and anything involved in crafting an “experience” rather than just a “level.”

Seth Marinello – In the last decade the biggest fundamental change in the level design workflow has been moving away from brushes to static meshes. From Quake 1 all the way through the early Source games the level designer was also the environment artist. Since then we have moved a lot of the work out of our editors and into 3D modeling programs like Maya. This has vastly improved the visual quality of the games we can make, but at the same time drastically changed the role of a level designer in the process. Now, we are not just creators but also integrators and collaborations with whole teams supporting the vision of a level. In the last few years I have seen a lot of games succeed with more open environments; I hope over the coming years we see level design focus on enabling experimentation over following a script.

Joel Burgess – When I first got interested in level design, it was very much a one-man operation. Early mappers would create every aspect of their levels, from layout to lighting to scripting. Just a few years later, as I got into the industry, that was already changing. New-at-that-time consoles like the PS2 and Xbox demanded higher visual fidelity, and dev tools were more robust and complex to use than before. Level design became a more distributed process, often involving 2 or 3 people in more specialized roles.

This may seem like a bleak prospect for those who are uninterested in heavy specialization. While I have known designers who prefer to focus on scripting or layout exclusively, I personally enjoy dabbling in all aspects of game dev, and have historically found that well-rounded LDs thrive at bringing together disparate elements as great gameplay. Specializing runs somewhat counter to cultivating this kind of LD.

I think we’re at an exciting cusp for games and level design right now, though. While the upper end of fidelity continues to rise, there’s more room than ever for games of all types and scale. This is great news for level designers, because no matter what unique combination of skills and interests you may have, there’s a game out there for which you’re the perfect LD.(source:gamasutra)

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