Introducing a new mechanic in a game can be a bit daunting. Players spend hours trying to master the buttons needed to do a special combo or timing when to hit the R2 button on their favorite gun. Then halfway through the game, a new mechanic is introduced, and they have to figure out how to use it to their advantage. Many games do this but introduce it similarly. They have a cut scene play with an AI telling you what to do, then you provide a small tutorial for the mechanic. Some games do this differently, and one that is a great example is the time-shifting mechanic in TitanFall 2. After playing, I decided to do a case study to comprehend why so many people love time-shifting. I built the study in Unreal Engine 4 to continue my journey on learning Blueprints and used free models online for the enemies.

Research

For research, I replayed the mission “Effect and Cause”. As I played, I took notes on where enemies were placed within the mission and what environmental pieces were used to force the player to use the time shiftier.

Blocking Out

I reconstructed the level using BSP brushes in Unreal to understand the scale of this space. Using Blueprints, I was able to create simple interactions, wall running, and the time shifting mechanic.

Time Shift Introduction

With introducing a new mechanic, most games have the player talk to a character in a cut scene, buttons appear on screen then the player can start using it. While there is nothing wrong with this method, TitanFall 2 introduces the time-shifting differently.

In the beginning, Cooper enters a lab facility and as he walks around, he starts jumping back and forth through time in various parts of the level. This introduces the player to time-shifting, where they jump between different levels at random times. This allows them to get used to it before the mechanic is provided to them later on. They also learn that shifting throughout the level will be needed to continue through exploration.

This is a unique introduction because instead of having the player go through a cinematic explaining what will happen, they have to walk around and experience it for the first time. They have no control of the shifting, so they have to prepare themselves for whenever they may encounter enemies.

Enemy Encounters

Shifting provides the player some interesting choices in terms of combat. When shifting in an encounter, a blue light appears where an enemy used to stand and will be there for a couple of seconds. When switching back, enemies will take a couple of seconds to locate the player and attack them. This allows the player to plot an attack or if they feel overwhelmed, they can switch and take a minute to recover.

Some encounters can be avoided, but others cannot be and enemy types are different depending on the timeline the player is in. An example would be the combat zone in the gif above.

At the beginning of this encounter, malfunctioning robots come out of the wall to confront the player. When running down the stairs, they encounter alien-like animals that come from the walls as well. If the player time shifts, they are then greeted by mercenaries, some equipped with energy shields.

This and other parts of the level are examples of the player “picking their poison.” It is a great way to keep the player excited and fight through the game. Since TitanFall 2 is a shooter, you don’t want to avoid the entirety of the main loop by using the shifting. Ultimately, regardless of how many mechanics are included, if the main loop is a shooter then the player is going to have to shoot. Adding on mechanics is supposed to enhance the player’s experiences, not deter them from the main point of the game.

Storytelling and Level Design

While time-shifting gives a fun change in combat, it also presents an interesting take with storytelling. Instead of BT informing the player about the past, the time shifting allows the player to see snippets of the lab’s past and people interacting in the world.

When shifting, entities in both worlds detect your presence. At the beginning of the game, this is shown when walking into a room and shifting to a conference. As you walk, the presenter asks a question before you shift again. This lets the player know they are not a fly on the wall and will interact with AI in both worlds.

The environment around the player completely changes in color palette and lighting as well. This way, players do not get confused while running around the level. When in the past, the lighting is exceptionally bright and the environment has slightly blue hues, showing this place is fully operational and clean.

In the present, the main source of lighting is the fire within the building. This gives a tenser vibe as the player has to be careful where they step. Also, there is foliage and broken pieces to show that this place has been abandoned for a long time.

The environment changes give a chance for some interesting puzzles. The puzzles are not complicated as they may be jumping from wall to wall or getting a door open. However, with the time shifting, players could find themselves in a firefight they were not expecting and shift for safety.

They may be timing the switching between timelines while wall running to carefully avoid falling into a deep abyss.

They may also get an adrenaline rush by falling down a shaft where they have to avoid being hit by fans.

Opening doors with buttons and platforming are simple level puzzles, but adding in mechanics like time shifting offers them an interesting twist. This conveys a sense of familiarity, so players don’t have to overthink their decisions, but the mechanic nevertheless gives a fun challenge. As level designers, it’s our job to figure out how we can make players feel comfortable in spaces but equally give them a challenge.

Of course when talking level design, we cannot leave out all of the visual cues used to guide them through the mission.

Conclusion

After this study, I understand why so many people claim that it is one of the best first-person shooters to have come out. In a genre where many games solely implement the run and gun approach, TitanFall 2 feels like a breath of fresh air. It is a good FPS with extra layers of mechanics that add more fun and excitement game play. I learned that adding in one mechanic can alter the entire dynamic of a game and if done right, will have people talking for years. It’s not a one-man show; it takes other designers, programmers, artists, sound designers, QA, and many more for a level that feels complete and immersive.

I really enjoyed learning from this study and getting out of my comfort zone by creating the mechanics. I know that this experience will only increase my level design knowledge!

Feel free to play games I have worked on by going to my website here. Any comments you have for them or my blogs, my contact information is on my website as well.

Virtual Reality has been on the market for decades, and yet developers are still discovering new things. Many have learned that principles that work for a PC/console game, may not work for something in VR. I have experience with VR games but most of them had simple mechanics, more of an interactive experience than a game. This post will be about my level design process of a VR game called Whipslash, inspired by the Leviathan Axe in God of War, where players use their axes to traverse the environment with a unique movement system and fight enemies. I was responsible for creating the final arena within the game. So far, this project pushed my skills as a level designer. With a unique movement system, enemies, and being in VR, I had to do a lot of playtesting and iterations for the level to feel fun and easy to maneuver around.

Research

I came onto the project when the team produced a playable prototype. Before joining, I was a playtester as they tried perfecting their ax-throwing mechanic. I fell in love with the mechanic even though it was a simple prototype. I wanted to become part of the project and asked to design levels for them and they agreed.

When I first began research for levels, we talked about them being a series of arenas that the player would have to kill all the NPCs to advance through. Below were some concepts for arenas that the player would fight in.

While in the preproduction stage, we shortly gained another designer onto the team. After much discussion, it was decided to develop one large level where there would be combat spaces rather than separate arenas. I would design a vast arena at the end where the player would have to discover a way to unlock the final door. For this, I decided to go back and replay God of War, which sets as an excellent example of pacing between combat and exploration.

Level Concepting

As mentioned before, the initial plan was to have the player do most of the combat in arenas. Since we decided to do the one level, the arenas would now become smaller combat ones filled with enemies. In the end, there would be a large arena where the player would fight all the enemies to complete the game.

I produced quick drawings on paper to approach an overall idea for the level’s length (A polished version was created in Illustrator below.) For the final arena, I decided to create sketches in Maya to play around with what made sense in the space and quicker iteration. I proceeded to build the level out using ProBuilder in Unity and the assets developed by our environment artist.

The idea was the player would enter into a combat zone from above then come down and attack the group of enemies.

For maneuvering throughout the world, we wanted to have a unique moving mechanic instead of teleportation. It was decided to use a grapple point system, where the player could throw their axes at them and move to its general location. Originally, players were able to stick to a grapple and then hit the trigger button on the controller to release.

We created two different enemy types, grunt groups and elites. The grunts were a large group of small robots that would surround and attack the player, but in a Kung-Fu Circle method (attack one at a time not all at once) so the player would not feel overwhelmed. the elites were an enemy that shot at you from a distance and took more damage to kill. We wanted to have a variety of enemies so combat would not get stale.

Playtesting

During playtesting, players found the level to be very long. With the combination of my arena and the other designer’s level section, it took over 20 minutes to complete. We realized that the game mechanics and movement system would take time to learn so having a long level could tire the player out.

The combat zones were also very spacious and did not give the player enough reason to move around. Even with many grapple points, players did not have to use the movement mechanic because enemies would come to them and they could stand and throw their axes. Realizing this, we needed them to be mobile within these spaces because not only was the combat fun but so was the movement.

If the player went to ground level, they still felt overwhelmed by the enemies. Since the area was so spacious, the grunts could see them and all converge at once. There were also so many elites shooting at the player that between being shot at and fighting the grunts, it became too hectic.

The main issues we saw during play testing were:

1. A very long level
2. Players did not move a lot during the combat spaces
3. Players could skip through the combat zones if they did not want to engage with enemies
4. Overwhelming amount of enemies in an open space

Solutions

After discussing with the team, it was decided that our other designer would create the beginning level and I would construct the final arena. This allowed me to focus on how the player can utilize all of the mechanics learned earlier and design a complex yet fun space.

For the player’s movement, we decided that to advance through the level, they have to break all the monitors within the area. The monitors were placed in specific locations to promote exploration throughout the environment and encounter enemies. This, in turn, helps with the combat zone being skipped as players would have to come in contact with enemies during exploration. The arena has three levels of verticality for the player to maneuver up and down. It was also split into three sections because having an open area felt very overwhelming to play in.

In the beginning of development, we had bombs that the player could blow up to destroy a group of enemies at once. Many were replaced with generators, that when thrown at, gave your axes explosive power. The bombs were added as a puzzle element and used to get a drop on a large number of enemies in the arena.

Designing for VR

During development, I realized that creating levels for VR would have an alternative approach than 3rd person games. In 3rd person games, you have to produce a composition on the screen to guide the player to the next objective. When doing block-ins for 3rd person, I possess a good understanding of where to place models to guide the player in the scene. I would then playtest to make sure it is perfect. With Whipslash, I would block out the level thinking that the props are in good locations. Once the headset came on, I realized there were more issues than I saw in the editor. I would see some scaling issues with props or that they were not placed whereas intended. One aspect of the level that was constantly adjusted was the grapple points’ positioning for the movement. I was constantly switching from editor to gameplay to make sure they were set up the best way possible for the player to maneuver around without any issue. Even though creating levels was slightly different from PC to VR, the rules of shape language and framing were still brilliant ways to guide and focus the player.

During playtesting, we found players did not have a reason to keep moving around the level. We came up with the idea of having locked doors to hinder the player’s progress and they have to break monitors around the room to open the door.

With the doors, however, we saw players were confused about how to open the doors. It was decided to include glowing, purple wires going from the door to the monitor, so it was easier for them to be located.

In the arena, there is a door in the middle of the space and four monitors located within the area. Two are in the first section and hallway for positive progression to make the player realize they may have to break multiple monitors. Once closer to the door, they can follow wires that lead to more monitors in the back of the arena. Once all four are broken, the door opens for them to proceed through.

There are also three levels of verticality within the level because it was more fun to move up and down with the movement system. I also established vantage points for the player to survey the area, so they could plot their attack and see where the next monitor is.

Shape language, colors, and framing was still a big part of creating the level. I realized that while I would have to adjust the placement of props for VR, all of the level design principles still apply.

For enemy placement, I decided to spread them about instead of having them cramp in one space. The grunts were now far enough away for the player to see but they would not travel across unless the player was close enough. Any space that had a large number of enemies was accompanied with generators or suspended bombs to take a larger amount out at once.I also decreased the amount of elites so they would not be overwhelmed by being shot at all directions.

Some elites were given shields that could only be destroyed using the generator power up. This was done so we could encourage the player to use the mechanic.

Constant Iteration

The level section was constantly going through iterations to make sure players could have a fun experience. As mentioned above, the section I developed was large in the beginning and both levels together took over thirty minutes overall to complete. While this showed we had content, we wanted to submit the game to showcases and did not want people to wait thirty minutes to play one after another. The length would also tire players out since they had to swing to throw the axes so they could move around and confront enemies.

The most challenging part was lining up the grapple points so the player had room to move, but did not break the puzzle elements. If one grapple point was moved, I would have to play the level over to make sure it did not disrupt the flow.

An example of this is the third section of the arena. The player has to climb to the third floor to destroy a monitor. To do so, they have to blow up a bomb attached to a grapple point to move up without falling. If they throw at it without destroying the bomb, they will fall to the first floor.

When I initially did this puzzle, you could see a grapple point on the third floor and skip it. Next, I realized that if they fall to the 1st level and look up, that same grapple point can be noticed and players move to the third floor. I was changing grapple points and modular pieces to where the only grapple point the player would notice was the one with the bomb. If they fell, then the grapple point above can not be seen. While the concept of the puzzle was simple, it took longer than expected since it had to line up perfectly to work in VR.

Takeaways:

Adapt but trust the fundamentals: Whipslash was a fun challenge because I was designing a level on a platform I was unaccustomed to. I learned I had to adjust my way of thinking to create the best level possible. Though this was different from what I was used to, I learned the fundamentals were still crucial. Aspects such as shape language, color, and composition remain as great methods to guide the player but they have to fit in VR.

Playtest, Iterate, Repeat!: As a level designer, I know how crucial playtesting and iteration is so a game can be as polished as possible. With Whipslash, I had to try different approaches to the level’s layout so that the mechanics we had were used at their fullest potential. It was a humbling experience to block in Unity thinking that all was set up properly, only to play and discover the numerous errors and level breaking placements there were. I saw that for VR, you may think everything looks good within the editor, but it can be a different story once the headset comes on.

Feel free to play the game and other games I have worked on by going to my website here. Any comments you have for them, my contact information is on my website as well.

Update: This blog is now featured on Next Level Design’s website! the link is here

Hello! My name is Nathan Kellman. I am a passionate game designer specializing in level design.

I have always been an adoring fan of Naughty Dog’s level design practices. For my games, I would look to their GDC talks for the best ways of guiding a player through a space using shapes, negative space and narrative. One game that did an excellent job of this was The Last of Us. The combination of exciting gameplay with a compelling narrative had me playing for hours on end, and left me more excited for The Last of Us Part II. After playing the game, I wanted to complete a case study by recreating a level and breaking it down to better myself as a level designer. I was inspired by level designers like Jon Hickenbottom and Ovidiu Mantoc, who recreate levels from games to learn more about why a level was designed the way it is. I wanted to rebuild in Unreal Engine 4 to learn more Visual Scripting and get better with using BSP brushes for blocking out levels.

Research

To begin with, I had to figure out which level to recreate from The Last of Us. This was difficult especially since so many of these levels were created with such precision and care. I decided to pick “Bill’s Town” because of how the level was paced. It was one that I kept coming back to since it was where I had the most fun. Since the level was split into four parts, I wanted to focus on “The Woods” section because of its pacing.

As I played through, I took many screenshots to get an idea of the scale and composition . I would also sketch out the level in my notebook to get a top-down view of it as I played.

Blocking Out

Below I tried to recreate the level section using a combination of BSP brushes in Unreal and Maya to understand the ideas of scale and composition for this space. I did visual scripting with Blueprints to have objects move and some AI reactions.

More Than Shapes

As I played throughout the game and developed the level, I realized how strategically the designers were building out the level. They use many instances of shape language, composition, sound and color to maneuver the player throughout the space.

In the first part of the level, Joel and Ellie come into the woods with trees obscuring the sky and framing in a bird down a hill. Once the player gets below, they observe the bird that flies off to the left towards the water tower. Joel even talks about the water tower saying this is where to go. Utilizing elements like this is a huge part of level design because it can enforce where the player has to go and they won’t be confused.

The sound was also a significant part of the design. Players would get into an enemy encounter and would detect them before being seen. In this level, the player would detect the sounds of clickers and then use listen mode to identify their location. In the last section of the level, you can hear a runner banging on a door. While this is optional, the banging and movement of the door draw players in to identify what is going on. As they explore the house, a runner ambushes them. After killing it, they next find a note explaining what happened.

Shape language and colors are a great way to inform the player where to go without actually telling them. Players hate having their handheld through a game. It’s all right to do so during tutorials and introducing new mechanics, but throughout an entire game would irritate people.

For centuries, we would look at shapes and colors to tell if there was danger or safety. Even today, we associate certain shapes and color with products, people or other things. With this knowledge, designers have been able to instruct players where to go without them even recognizing it.

Tension Beats

“The Woods” does a great job of building up tension throughout the level and overall the chapter. There are a limited number of enemy encounters but it keeps the player on their toes. In addition, the ending provides a big climax where they have to fight for their life.

There are only five enemy encounters with this section. The first encounter is two clickers in an enclosed environment. The player can silently slip through the clickers or kill both. Sneaking past them is not that hard as all you need to do is keep going to the left, but players may take the risk to collect supplies. This can entice players to play cautiously, so they do not alert the clickers because those are instant kills if they get their hands on the player.

The second and third are also clickers. However, the second is more of a jump scare where the clicker comes around the corner and is blown up by a trap. Once past that, you collect a bow and some arrows then you encounter a sleeping clicker which they can kill with the arrow.

The fourth enemy is optional, but it is hard to miss. Close to the end of the section, there is a loud banging on to the left with the door moving and dust being kicked up. Once the player enters, they hear the infected race upstairs then as they explore the area, it runs out and ambushes them.

The climax of the level is when Joel and Ellie are in the warehouse where Joel is upside down and fighting off a wave of infection.

With these level encounters, a player is cautious because clickers can kill them with one touch. However, there is a sense of power because they can be sneaked upon and killed with little drawback. Then the climax takes that power away from them, suspended upside down with infected from all-around attacking while Ellie is trying to free the player from the trap. This climax reminds the player that they are still a hostile world and some things are not in their control.

Conclusion

The Last of Us continues to be a great example of developing levels that deliver beautiful narrative and stressful combat mechanics. After rebuilding this level section, I understood levels didn’t have to be complicated or huge for a player to have fun. What matters most is the pacing within to keep the player engaged and how you allow the environment to tell the story. Using environmental storytelling, sounds, and art to direct the player is excellent because it feels more natural and disguises all the arrows that inform them where to go. It isn’t just the level designers’ task for this to come to vision. It takes artists, sound designers, testers, writers and many more people to bring a level to life.

After this study, I learned that rebuilding my favorite levels was the best way to continue building my level design knowledge. I discover better ways to pace a player through narrative elements and enemy encounters. I saw the buildup of tension to the final climax was why I enjoyed it so much. I would encourage anyone who wants to pursue level design to rebuild their favorite levels and try to apply them to their games. I plan on continuing studies like this because of the fun I had and all I learn!

Feel free to play games I have worked on by going to my website here. Any comments you have for them or my blogs, my contact information is on my website as well.

I always loved creating art. Whether it was doing sketching buildings for perspective or learning how to sculpt characters in Zbrush, I loved finding ways of having my imagination come to life. I started to transfer into level design because I loved solving the problem of how to make a game space fun. I realized I could use the artistic skills I gathered over the years to enhance the level’s aesthetics and mechanics. In summer 2019, I decided to enroll in the CG Master Academy’s Level Design for Games course to learn the newest industry trends when it comes to level design. The course was taught by Patrick Hanslow, an Advanced Level Designer at WB Games, with video lectures by Emilia Schatz, a lead designer at Naughty Dog. What I came away with was not only how to design a space, but how to use psychology, shapes, colors, and composition to tell a story through an environment.

Concept to Playable

Anyone who is an artist will tell you that reference is very important when creating your work. It is essential for inspiration and helps to better visualize what you want to create. For each assignment, I would constantly browse through Artstation, Google, and Pinterest finding images that would inspire me to create levels. Once I found images that satisfied me, I would then create a quick paper sketch of the level layout to know what the overall flow of the level would be and where to place props within it.

Once I started looking for references for my levels, the process of making levels a lot easier. I would usually sketch out then build the levels, but only thinking of the gameplay experience. When looking at concept art, I start paying attention to the composition of the piece and how to recreate that in a block out. When creating the block out, I would work out methods to blend the concepts and ways how to transition from one to another. Learning to use concept art was a huge lesson for me. Now when creating a level, I would constantly look at art for inspiration and it has helped tremendously.

Composition

Composition is a huge aspect when making levels. Good composition and prop placement can lead the player in a very discreet technique and feel natural. It’s also a great way to do reveals of vistas and to inform the player to “go this way” without having a large sign telling them to do so. Games like Uncharted are an excellent example of how to use composition to guide players. Using guiding lines and other forms of shapes can help immensely with the level’s gameplay. Using something like this, it will send clear messages to the player on where to go and what to do.

In the images below, I used composition to tell the player what is important and how to pull them to a location.

The yellow building is the center of the screen. It is also yellow with a unique silhouette that stands out from the dark and dull colors.

All of the props and environment pieces angle to the building. These act as guiding lines that lead the player’s eyes to the building

The trees also act as pillars to the door on the building. The door is also dark brown so it stands out from the yellow building.

Shapes and Psychology

For thousands of years, humans associate shapes with feeling safe or recognizing danger. Even to this day, our brains still react depending on the shapes we see. The three common shapes are the ones we see below: Squares, Circles, and Triangles.

​Squares symbolize something is safe and trustworthy. Like a building, you can walk into it and expect it not to fall. It is also widely used for covers in 1st and 3rd person shooter games like Call of Duty or Uncharted. This is also great for stealth so plays can sneak by NPCs or hide when they feel overwhelmed by enemy forces.

In the picture below, the square shapes are used to convey the player is entering a combat space. They can look down and plan their attack or escape route before engaging with the NPCs.

Circles are used to show when something is cute and friendly. For environments, it can mean the level is a safe place and to have the player feel relaxed. This can be great for tutorial levels or the beginning of the game so players can ease into the gameplay and narrative.

In this screenshot, I have trees that circle the player and provide a clear path on where to go. This also has aspects of “The Mentor” from the Hero’s Journey, where the player feels protected and can get used to the mechanics at the beginning of the level.

Triangles are used to show danger and aggression. It is also a great way to provide tension to a scene. This could be having the player is a dead forest before they get to a combat zone, or having them go over a bridge with sharp rocks below.

When I learn the aspect of shape language, I started seeing it in all of the games I played myself. Understanding why I might feel so tense in a space with jagged objects or relaxed when I am in a calm forest.

Conclusion

Taking this class was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my career as a level designer. I found a new outlook on how to create levels and to make them feel more alive. I was continuously learning new terms and workflows when it came to level design. Seeing that even adding in simple prop models can drastically help with guidance and the storytelling within a level. With feedback from Patrick and lectures from Emilia, I gained more confidence in my skills as a level designer and feel prepared to design any level no matter what the mechanic is!

I highly recommend CG Master Academy and especially Level Design for Games with Patrick Hanslow. The 10 weeks are worth it!

Hello! My name is Nathan Kellman. I am a passionate game designer specializing in level design.

Game designers constantly want to develop games where players naturally have a memorable experience. Sometimes that game can be very simple. In this post, I will be discussing my creative process of designing levels and the narrative on Lika, a 2.5D atmospheric side-scroller where you collect magic leaves for a great tree to restore balance to the four seasons. After working on this project, I learned that players may not want complex fighting mechanics like Street Fighter or a Dark Souls-like experience with demanding bosses. You can design something simple like Flower and people will enjoy it. I also learned how difficult it was to port a project from PC to mobile.

Brainstorming

During the brainstorming process, the team wanted to develop a game that used as little input as possible. We went with only using the mouse to move and the left click to activate an action. We were constantly discussing what the player was going to be performing. It was decided they would be exploring the level to gather leaves and wanted the game to play similar like games from thatgamecompany, so something simple yet memorable and relaxing. In this session, we discussed how to collect leaves, but I would constantly ask “Why is the player collecting leaves?” We could not come up with a narrative that could be agreed upon, so it was decided to think about it overnight and discuss ideas the following day.

Later on that night, I started brainstorming about the narrative. The first step was to tie in the collecting leaves mechanic with the story of the game. The first idea that came to mind was the player would be in a forest setting since they would be collecting leaves. The next was what would live in the forest that the player would play as, and my mind went to an old animated movie called Ferngully.

Ferngully is a movie about fairies that live in a rainforest, and they have to defend it from an ancient evil that wants to demolish their home. This inspired the player being a fairy living in a forest collecting leaves and the leaves were for a great tree. Next was to find a name for the game that helped tied in all together. The title was to be easy to remember like Journey or Flower, so I went to google translate and started typing in words. Ultimately, “Lika” was the decided name, which means equal in Swedish. The narrative became the player is a fairy that is collecting leaves for a great tree called Lika to bring equality and balance back to the four seasons. I pitched this to the team, and they felt like it supported the relaxing atmosphere that we wanted for the game.

Researching

Thatgamecompany’s games were a huge inspiration for Lika’s gameplay mechanics and general mood. Flower was referred to a lot because of the collecting mechanic and observing vibrant changes of color as the player collects the leaves. Flow had a minimal death risk with players getting hit and losing pieces of themselves, but they did not die and can obtain those sections back. Journey also did a great job of promoting exploration around the world and have fun doing it.

To encourage the narrative of saving the four seasons, the environment starts off black and white with the fairy and leaves having color to stand out. As the player collects the leaves, the environment starts adding in color with each leaf to where it’s full of vibrant colors.

The inspiration for the black and white was Limbo, a game that is completely in black and white. This was to capture the sense of the world felt dull and static with black and white hues. For the color, we looked at Ori and the Blind Forest. They have a wide array of beautiful colors, and we wanted the player to see how much life they were bringing back into the world.

Level Concepting

In terms of the levels, we decided to make the game a side-scroller because of our time constraints for the project. we believed it helped with the relaxing experience rather than have an open world that the player would have to explore to find each leaf.

I started sketching out levels in Photoshop for each of the seasons. Each with their own unique element, then at the end, introduce what the next obstacle is going to appear in the next season.

For an example of season transition, Spring has floating rocks that the player avoids. At the end of Spring, when transiting to Summer, it shows vines that make the player loses a leaf when they touch it.

The obstacles were placed in different parts of the game to provide a certain level beat. The player would go through admiring the aesthetic but then would come across some obstacles like avoiding falling spikes or vines that can make them lose a leaf.

Playtesting

During playtesting, players had trouble navigating throughout the levels. The obstacles were either to fast for the player to carefully avoid or there was so much that they would become anxious. An example was when at the summer level, there was a tunnel of vines that people would go through. They would quickly run through and lose some leaves but were too worried about clearing the vines. This naturally caused them to focus on trying to clear it, not realizing the leaves were left behind or that the background’s color was altering as they collected them.

People also did not know about the great tree they were helping. Some remembered it from our pitch, but others forgot and would blow by the leaves since they did not remember the purpose of why to collect them.

The main problems we figured out from playtests were:

1. Levels made players very stressful
2. Nothing talked about the narrative of the game so they would ignore the leaves

Solutions

The solution for the levels was to space out the obstacles and remove pieces that added to many difficulties. This allowed the game to have different beats of “difficulty” that would gradually increase in the levels. There is no death-state within the game, the only way players can “lose” leaves is colliding with a spike or vines. If one was lost, they can go back and retrieve it. This was a lot easier to do since they were not surrounded by many dangerous obstacles.

For explaining the narrative, the dialogue of the great tree was placed in the beginning to explain what the player was doing and why. Once completing a level, another piece of dialogue would appear telling them what level was next.

Designing for Mobile

After we had launched the PC version of Lika, it received a lot of success in a brief amount of time. This inspired us to look into developing a mobile version for the game. I thought that porting this to mobile was not going to be that hard of a task since the game was simple. During the development process, I realized that was completely wrong. So many different aspects had to change to execute the vision that we had.

Movement

The first mechanic that changed was the player movement. In the PC version, there is a fairy character that you control with the mouse and you click to blow win to the leaves. Two different movement systems were designed to be playtested. The first movement was to have a joystick icon on the bottom left to control the character and a button on the right to control the wind. The second one was having the player touch the screen which moved the character and blew the wind at the same time.

During the playtest, people were split 50/50 on the movement systems. For the joystick, they enjoyed that it played like the PC version but felt it took away the immersion because the game did not have a user interface (UI). For the touch screen, others enjoyed the free movement but they could not see the fairy since their finger was blocking the character.

After much discussion, the touch screen was selected because we did not want to place UI in the game. We wanted our game to still have thatgamecompany feel where they do not have UI on the screen and feedback is applied with sounds, shapes, and colors.

Puzzles & Interactions

A considerable challenge in mobile game design is maintaining the player’s attention so they can continue playing the game. If their attention is not captured within the first 10 seconds, they will withdraw and likely never play it again. For Lika, we designed small puzzles and interactions that would get the player to think and maintain their attention while keeping them simple and easy to figure out. These were spaced out in a certain order, so players would enjoy a small challenge then have the chance to do interaction and enjoy the character movement.

Examples of some interactions below:

The interactions came about because too many puzzles were being designed and it felt like the game was getting away from the narrative of restoring the forest. The first interaction design was a turtle on its shell that the player could help back up, and they would get a leaf. After including this feature, many testers enjoyed the interaction and wanted to have more to do. They felt like they were healing the forest because of helping different parts of nature and not just completing small puzzles the entire time.

The main aspect of the puzzles is the player’s path is blocked, and they have to figure out how to get through it. They are in no way supposed to be anything complicated or overly challenging, just something for the player to do.

Takeaways:

Find the fun of your game: Every game has something about it that makes it fun. As game developers, we have to figure out what makes our games fun and enhances the players’ experience. I learned that trying to turn Lika into a puzzle game steered it in the direction of being a completely different game. Finding the interactions enhanced what we wanted the player to feel and it made our game turn out for the better.

Simple can be fun: Most games that I play involve complex combinations of button mashes or navigating through a complicated space to explore the world. Designing a game like Lika was challenging because I needed to focus on not what I found engaging but what the game needed to voice its narrative. Realizing that people may not desire to play a game like Dark Souls or Street Fighter all the time, they might just want to sit and enjoy a relaxing experience.

Respect the Port!: I thought because Lika was a simple game, that porting it to mobile was not going to be that difficult of a task. I realized very quickly that was wrong and trying to design for a different controller input was like designing a different game. It’s critical that in the development process that you think of the alternative ways the game can work and on what platform. Now when I hear about games being ported to various devices, especially mobile, I salute those developers because it is no trivial task.

Feel free to play the game and other games I have worked on by going to my website here. Any comments you have for them, my contact information is on my website as well.

Hello! My name is Nathan Kellman. I am a passionate game designer specializing in level design.

This post is about my level design process on my game development capstone project called Sphear, a 3D puzzle platformer where players have to rotate the level around them to navigate through the world. We were mentored by employees of High Moon Studios, a AAA game studio located in California. At the beginning of the project, our team wanted to create a game that was fun to play but also challenged us in our respective fields. Once we decided on the main mechanic to be rotation, the biggest question was “How do we make sure the player knows where to go ?” I will go into detail about how the levels were designed and the takeaways that made me a better level designer.

Research

A huge inspiration for guiding the player throughout the levels was looking at the divine beasts from Zelda: Breath of the Wild since those dungeons use rotation and do a great job of guiding the player around. A big feature with the divine beast was the small 3D map of the level the player could pull up and decide which part to rotate. We created a similar mechanic like this because we did not want the player to get turned around.

I also researched Naughty Dog’s games such as Uncharted, The Last of Us and watched GDC talks they gave about level design. They discussed using visual cues such as shapes and colors to guide the player through their levels. I knew this would be essential to our game, so players would not get lost in rotation and feel like they were making progress throughout the game.

Link to the GDC talk is here

The narrative is that players are a space government official named Geoff Albert Stilson, who is investigating a vacant space station and tries to figure out why the crew is missing. During his search, he discovers an alien-like substance called the Moss. It gradually takes over the ship, going from clean mechanic structures to organic like objects that consume the area and convey a sense of dread.

We got this idea from Dead Space because we felt that this gave the perfect vibe for how we wanted our players to feel like as they move deeper inside the station.

Concepting and Block Out

Usually, when planning out levels, I grab a sketchbook and start drawing as much as possible. With Sphear, it was challenging to draw out levels since it was dealing with rotating objects in a 3d space. After a couple of hours of frustration, I decided to use Maya to sketch my ideas. This was an excellent way for me to use simple cubes to do quick iterations with shapes and the overall flow of where the player to go.

Once satisfied with a Maya sketch, I would proceed to build-out and changing the level in Unity using Pro-builder. I would also playtest it to make sure the player can go from start to finish. In addition to designing for the Z-axis, We additionally had puzzles that rotated in the X and Y-axis. We thought it would be fun to have different puzzles that depended on many combinations of rotational directions.

Playtesting

During our first playtest, players broke my puzzles very easily. They would go to the end of the chamber, complete one rotation and skip the entire puzzle. Some would get turned around and not sure which way was the exact route to go. Additionally, they thought it wasn’t logical for such a vast chamber to rotate so rapidly, and it was disorienting.

For our other designer, his level was extremely complicated. People would get frustrated and give up because they did not know where to rotate next.

They enjoyed the narrow hallways because they were a simple introduction to the rotation and a good break between the larger puzzles.

The major issues after our playtest were:

1. Puzzles were so simple that they were easy to break or too complex and people quit
2. Players get turned around and not sure where to go
3. The speed of the larger chamber caused motion sickness

Solutions

For puzzle simplicity, we decided to design them to be more abstract but maintain a clear-cut path for the player to follow. We colored-coded interactables and doors red because those stood out from the environment. After assigning these colors, players were capable of distinguishing where they were supposed to go. We also focused rotating on the Z-axis because we wanted to have polished puzzles.

We decided to use yellow as a guiding color. Once assets like stairs and platforms were added in, we utilized yellow lights to direct the player a precise path. These added more context for the player; with the platforms signaling “You can stand here” and the stairs indicating “go up this way.” I learned that if I would have produced simplistic models of stairs and platforms instead of cubes for my block in, it would have helped tremendously.

We decided to take out the red and make all the interactables green. We switched because red was a very loud and distracting color. The green still stood out from the environment but it was a lot easier in the eyes.

Composition was a huge part of directing the player where the objective was. Framing and shape placement represented an excellent practice of informing the player which way to go and maintain a visible path for them to follow.

Another way to demonstrate progression was Moss. The deeper the player ventures into the station, the more the moss starts taking over with in the world. We wanted them to slowly feel overwhelmed and appalled by the moss props. With this method, many players reacted in that way which was the exact effect we desired.

We additionally use text that we called “Logs” that explained the narrative of the game. The logs are from people who lived on the station. They explain the origin of the moss and its growth throughout the station.

As we approached the end of development, it became visible that the game didn’t feel like a complete experience, so I pitched an idea to my team. We could create a small cutscene at the end of the game to help bring the narrative together, similar to a gameplay trailer for an expo like E3. For that, I used a Unity plug-in called Cinemachine that allowed me to integrate in-game animations into a cutscene. It was easy to set up the camera and have it follow the character but I was not achieving the results I wanted. I decided to screen record the game view where the scene was playing, then I added music and fade in-and-outs in Adobe Premiere. I added many Moss props in the chamber to have players feel like they arrived at the center of the infection.

Takeaways:

The more context, the better: I learned that making simple models would have helped tremendously for the playtesting. Players would have received a better way to play through the block-in level and would have given better feedback on the flow and pace of the level because they would know where to go.

Challenge yourself!: We knew designing rotating levels was not going to be a trivial task, but we felt that since this was a capstone course that we should challenge ourselves. Witnessing people play a game like this and were able to finish while having fun brought an enormous smile to my face. I feel like if I can design levels around rotation then I can design any level!

Love the process!: Like all creative works, games are always constantly being reiterated upon. There will be times you get frustrated but if you keep pushing through, a breakthrough ultimately happens and everything comes together. We went through many irritations with the level design and puzzles. Once we discovered what worked for us, then it was just all about polishing the experience.

Feel free to play the game and other games I have worked on by going to my website here. Any comments you have for them, my contact information is on my website as well.