Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

Building Game Worlds
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U L T I M A T E G A M E D E S I G N
In fact, you can see the symmetry when you start with an overhead map or topographic
map as the basis for your level layout. It’s part of what you’re trying to work
out on paper. When you’re running around your favorite levels, stop and take a moment
to consider symmetry. Are you even aware of it? It’s actually best if you’re not
aware of it as a player. In that case, symmetry is working its magic. As a designer,
though, you’re looking for patterns like symmetry. You’re looking for patterns that
help drive the play.
Interior to Exterior
Interior to Exterior transitions are an important expression of function. Many popular
titles use environmental features that segue between interior and exterior environments.
Interior to exterior transition spaces should be planned for and, again, a logic
check should be made to insure that these transitions make sense by viewing the
larger picture of an overall level layout. Interiors that change rapidly to unrelated exteriors
on a room-to-room basis usually don’t keep a player believing that they are
“within” a certain environmental setting for very long. If a player makes two close
exits from an interior to two unrelated exterior scenes (for example, from a prison
row exit to a jungle exterior through one door, and through another immediate door
into a desert setting), it may look cool, but it doesn’t support keeping a player’s belief
state suspended. We’re always striving to provide a player with a “continuous” feeling
or belief that they are where we’ve put them. A prison camp in the desert is a good
example. If you want both jungle and desert simultaneously, you need to think about
transition for the player.
Reinforcing Mood
Building mood supports and details your gameplay function ideas. The
previsualization sequence should attempt to “ask and answer” questions about how
a game will transfer mood to the player. Early concept drawings should deliver notes
and sketches that help define the mood. How will audio and visuals come together to
transfer mood? If you’re building a fantasy fighter based on a cartoon world, how
will you transfer mood? Location sets mood.
You want the mood to mirror the experience you’re trying to transfer. Sports games
or first-person shooters offer fast and frantic action, but the mood is reinforced by immersion
via visual and auditory cues. Relatively small touches can transfer plenty of
mood. For example, hearing an in-stadium broadcast announcer that sounds like a
true in-stadium announcer, such as you would hear while playing in a football stadium,
does much to transfer mood. Audio should never be neglected in game design,
although historically it has been. Our understanding of mood is greatly enhanced or diminished
by the presence or absence of audio cues. Audio is fundamental to creating
and supporting mood. Audio is fundamental to designing a game world.