Level design

Wave 4 or wave 9?

In Kai and Remy's first Hyper Shards, every wave was the same recipe: aliens appeared at random spots, a few more each time. Testers could not tell wave 4 from wave 9, and nothing they learned in one wave mattered in the next.

A level is one designed stretch of play: a Garden Defense map, or a Hyper Shards wave with its aliens, places and timings. Level design is choosing all of that on purpose, so every level has a job.

Teach, test, twist

Nintendo's Koichi Hayashida, director of Super Mario 3D Land (2011), has compared a level to a four-panel comic, a Japanese story shape called kishotenketsu. Each level is built around one idea:

• Teach: introduce the idea where failing is safe.
• Test: ask the player to use it under pressure.
• Twist: change it, or combine it with something they already know.
• Finish: a short ending that lets them feel clever.

The Tutorials and menus lesson uses this pattern for a game's first minute. Good games repeat it in every level.

Pacing: peaks and valleys

Pacing is how intense a level feels from moment to moment. Players need tension (danger, speed, lots to watch) and rest (a calm moment to breathe and collect shards). Nonstop action is tiring, and long quiet stretches are boring.

Valve's co-op game Left 4 Dead (2008) does this in code. Its "AI Director" estimates how intense things feel for each player, builds the danger up to a peak, then holds back the big threats for a relax period of 30 to 45 seconds. Designers draw this as an intensity curve: peaks and valleys, not a flat line.

Bolt says: Inside one level, the intensity goes up and down. Across the whole game, the difficulty climbs slowly, and the Balancing with numbers lesson covers that curve.

Guiding the eye

Level designers decide where players look, without writing anything:

• LightPlayers look at the brightest spot first. A glowing plant spot says "tap here" without a word.
• Colour and contrastOne warm colour on a cool map pops out. In Hyper Shards, danger is always hot red and orange.
• Shapes and leading linesPaths, fences and rows of stones point the eye along a route, like arrows nobody drew.
• LandmarksA big object players can see from far away pulls them toward it. Walt Disney's designers called the castle at the end of Main Street a "weenie".

Greybox it first

Before any art, designers build a level out of plain shapes. This is a greybox, also called a blockout: the grey box idea from the Game design lesson, used for one map or wave.

For a new Garden Defense map, grey squares are the path, green squares are plant spots and a circle is Sprig. Moving a square takes seconds. Moving a finished, painted path takes hours. So the team plays the greybox, fixes the layout, and only then asks for art.

A Hyper Shards wave is just data: when each alien arrives, which kind, and where.

A Garden Defense map

Map 5 teaches a new idea: two paths. In the greybox, the left path is short and the right one is long and winding. Pests on the long path give players time, and the short path is the danger. Near the end, both paths join just before Sprig, so one strong plant at the join can guard both. That spot is a reward for players who read the map.

Then the team playtests the greybox and watches where players look first, where they plant and where they get stuck. The Playtesting lesson shows how to watch without helping.

A level checklist

• One ideaWhat new thing does this level teach, test and twist?
• Peaks and valleysWhere are the busy moments, and where can players breathe?
• A clear routeWhat does the eye land on first? Is it the right thing?
• Greybox firstIs it fun as plain shapes, before any art?

Bolt says: Levels give players things to do. Next lesson: story and dialogue, which give them a reason to do it.