We have looked at the designing of a character and the movement of a camera, and now you are ready to design the world for your game. From far-flung reaches of space to blistering snowy wastelands, this is where you now get to bring your ideas to life. But where do you start? How can you make your world fun? Will your player enjoy what you have made? What will be in your world? These are all things that you need to consider during this chapter while also thinking about how you can move the character around your world. Let us now investigate one of my favorite areas of game design.
Your World
Rounds – This is where the gameplay tends to be the same but might increase in difficulty. Call of Duty: Zombies is a perfect example for the use of rounds as the more enemies spawn , the higher the round. You might be able to accumulate points through this method and test the player’s skill.
Waves – These appear as combat but will have an end to them. You might find that your character ventures into uncharted territory and faces off against waves of enemies . Once they have been defeated, then your character can progress to the next stage or area.
World – This is the game space in its entirety. This will be the setting for the game and be as expansive and vast as you like. There can be various locations for the player to explore but will be filled with missions, enemies, collectibles, side quests, etc. While your world might have various locations, it will need to follow the same theme. Grand Theft Auto V is made up of desert and cityscapes, but all follow the same theme of being violent, and areas are accessible for the player, such as gun shops, clothing shops, and safehouses. In early days of video games, worlds meant something completely different. Worlds would be groups of levels that might have a different theme, such as Ice World, Fire World, or Earth World. Each comes with their own levels and enemies that make them unique.
Acts/chapters – These tend to be used if the designer wants to focus the game around the storytelling. Life Is Strange uses this method to show the development of the story and make it feel like the player is part of the storytelling.
Space – Being away from Earth, it gives you more freedom to think about what life might be like beyond the stars. You can explore vast planets, experience innovative technology, use new weapons, construct ships, and take your chances in space warfare. Halo: Combat Evolved paved the way for a plethora of first-person shooters set in space as this was the first of its kind to use modern technology to create a fast-paced, story-driven game. Since then, we have seen Doom remakes, Call of Duty being set in space, more Halo games, Destiny, Dead Space, and so many more. The perfect genre for all geeks and nerds!
Jungle – Most popular among the tomb raider and fortune hunter fans. The perfect setting for those that wish to seek long forgotten treasures and complete puzzles to take them into tombs and avoid traps. This is a fantastic way to introduce creatures that can typically be found in this environment such as crocodiles and snakes. This area is less likely to have vehicles that the player can use but gives the chance to go off the beaten track and explore on foot. Or the player might swing from vines, swim, or climb, a great chance to explore different mechanics within this setting.
Hospital/haunted house – For all those horror fans and that like jump scares, this is the setting for you. Players will explore creepy environments and not know what they might face up ahead. Giving the fear of the unknown is the best way to instill fear into the player. Music and lighting are crucial to this to ensure that the mood is being set along with a strong story. Be sure to create moments of silence or quiet, so when something jumps out at the player, it will create the perfect scare! Outlast is perfect for this by giving the player the goal to collect evidence that the asylum is not fit for purpose and then giving the player the goal to escape. With the use of humans and creatures jumping out and screaming at the player, this is perfect to fill your environment with those elements to make the world feel scary.
Pirate – Ever seen yourself as a swashbuckler and to sail the Seven Seas? Then this is the setting for you! Filled with weapons, treasure, and explosions, this is a great setting for exploration and the chance to visit islands and plunder treasure . This is a great setting for action and sailing your ship to destroy enemies that wish to steal your treasure. Then you have the shanties. You can never forget about having your crew sing shanties as you cross the seas. This is a perfect method if this is something you are wanting to explore for your game.
Cityscape/urban – When you think of games set in cities, what do you think of? I may have mentioned the Grand Theft Auto series a few times so far in this book, but they fit perfectly here. This style is perfect if you are wanting gangs, customizable vehicles , heists, and a wide variety of weapons. This is also one of the most realistic settings you can go for to make it feel that the player is part of that world. An easier setting to design, buildings and skyscrapers based on the real world can easily be made compared to large Sci-Fi worlds that are purely from imagination. The player can easily decide if they want to re-create their life in this setting or try to become a version of themselves that they have always wanted, with lots of money, cars, and clothes. What if you want to make the world a better place? Animal Crossing might be set in a campsite or allows you to travel to a new city, but urban and rural settings are a perfect combination to create a new world or live a calm and peaceful life with your neighbors.
Seems familiar? Lots of these worlds are featured in games that you can buy on the shelf of your local video game shop. But what if you cannot decide on an environment for your game? What if a few different ones come to mind but you cannot decide which one you like best? Why not mix and match! There is nothing wrong with mixing them up as lots of games have regions that the player can explore. Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 did this perfectly by creating a world that is made up of different worlds from famous comics, such as New York, Asgard, Egypt, Avengers Mansion, Wild West, and many more. Sometimes, choosing one environment may not be enough! Just be sure that if you decide to use more than one, have a good level of detail and ensure that there is a justified reason you have chosen to have multiple environments for your story.
Tutorials
How do players learn about the controls and abilities? Sometimes, it might be through experimentation, but it is typically through tutorial levels at the start of the game. Some games are detailed and guide the player slowly through their mechanics, some will leave the player to learn by themselves, or some will be a mixture of both.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a perfect example of training the player how to carry out new abilities and learning the controls of the game (without giving away many spoilers!). The game begins with the player having to reach the top of a structure. But the player is given a lot of negative space to move. Perfect, now the player can use the left stick to move around. But the player needs to move forward to reach a ledge to progress to the goal. Once reached, we would instinctively press X or A to jump, but this teaches the player without giving much direction other than simply using previous skills from other games and hand placements on the chosen peripheral.
As you progress through the first level, the player is faced with their first round of enemies and their trusty weapon. But unlike other combat tutorials, the player is given directions about how to complete combinations, but they cannot progress till they have demonstrated that they know how to complete them. During my first run through the game, I thought this was excellent as I sometimes struggle to remember all combinations during my first playthrough. I soon found myself on a runaway train with multiple enemies that I needed to practice my newfound skills on. However, I found myself facing the same two enemies repeatedly, and no matter how many times I was defeating them, they kept on coming. As it turns out, I wasn’t completing the combination correctly or following the instructions. While this might have caused some confusion, I found that this was perfect as there was no way I could progress until I had mastered this new move. (I can now say that I have now completed this level and am now one with the force!)
Overall, this is a perfect method to ensure that the player is completing mechanics correctly but also tapping into their muscle memory and training the player how to play the game in the way you designed it.
When teaching, students will learn new skills as they progress through lessons , assignments, projects, courses, etc. They will always be given the chance to reflect and think about how they would use their newfound skills differently in the future. Level design is used similarly to this, as you can give the player a chance to use their new skills if they visit a level, world, cave, temple, etc. again. Lots of open-world games will require the player to revisit old locations for things that they might have missed. In our case, using new abilities in previously restricted or locked locations is perfect for those that wish to grab all collectibles or anything they might have missed during their previous playthrough. I find that this is an excellent design method, as this allows the player the chance to appreciate the world you have designed, but to also make them feel that they are getting everything for their money. As we have mentioned before, making the player feel they are getting their money’s worth for a game is important, as there is one crucial thing that a designer wants and that is for their game to sell!
However, when it comes to designing, the tutorial level tends to come last in production. It is argued that it is better to design the tutorial at the end once the mechanics have been designed fully so the tutorial can be designed correctly so the player can learn everything that the game has to offer. You could make the tutorial first, but you might find that once you make it, the design or style of the game might shift, which will result in you coming back to design the tutorial again to keep it in line with your game’s design. Or don’t have one at all and treat the entire game as a training level. You could teach the player new moves and mechanics, gaining new gear, experience new gameplay and keep them on their toes with what the game has to offer.
Let’s Start Designing
With any great game come great environments, from roaring fields to vast, unexplored galaxies. There are worlds to be created for our players to explore. The only limit of creating a world is your imagination. But in the early days of video games, worlds did not start with 3D, so finding ways to make these worlds and levels could be quite tricky. Some early games you may have played had simple environments but soon turned into successful video games through the designing of their levels. As technology developed, so did the way we play games . This also meant that the way we see and interact with games did too. Fast forward to the present day, we are lucky to be able to experience stunning and expansive environments with our current technology, such as virtual reality.
Sometimes within game design, you may want to find ways to improve your workload and like something you have created so much that you want to give it more than one use. Why not reuse it? (Could it have more than fit into your game in other ways?) For those that may not have noticed, in the original Super Mario Bros World 1-1, you will notice that the images used for bushes and clouds are the same! The standard brick blocks are also used repeatedly and used in assorted colors in various levels. Back then, technology was limited so reusing assets was useful to help build worlds. But assets are not the only things that you can reuse, gameplay elements can also be used to help flesh out the game further. If you can make a gameplay element, such as shooting, running, stealth, climbing, driving, etc., be used more than a few times in your game, then it is worth keeping it. Having elements or systems like these in your game gives it diversity. You can be clever about reusing systems like these and how you want them to feature within your game. Some might even be introduced into the game through the form of levels. In Far Cry 6 or Grand Theft Auto V, missions will be based around new vehicles or mechanics for the player to practice with and understand. This might also be a fantastic way to introduce the player to a certain user interface (UI) element and what it means and how to read it.
It is one thing to create a world for your players to explore in, but it is something else to make it engaging and exciting. Rather than it being static, you need to make it interactable and allow the player the drive to explore. The more exploring you provide, the better the chance to appreciate the world you have created and enjoy it in its entirety. This should be their playground while learning how to move from task to task while avoiding obstacles and immersing themselves in the story you have designed.
GTA V
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
No Man’s Sky
Minecraft
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Marvel’s Spider-Man
The Elder Scrolls series
While considering the preceding examples, we also need to take note of the genre of games they are. For example, The Elder Scrolls series are all medieval, which means the assets created for them must have a theme. This is something you are going to need to consider while making your environment.
When will this end?!
That was quick!?
When thinking about your levels or world, you need to think about the length of time it will take to complete the level. Of course, during the design stage, enemies and traps will come in after you have thought through a floor plan. When building your level, place your character at the start and see how long it takes to travel to the end. Time is going to be your friend here, as working out how long you want your level to be is crucial to determine the overall game runtime. There is nothing worse than for a player to have the thoughts that I just mentioned, which is why you want to keep things interesting through the means of traps, enemies, puzzles, story, mechanics, etc. Keeping the player on their toes during this will stop them from having the chance to think about time in the level. But try to avoid keeping the player going through some intense action scenes or emotional cutscenes continuously. Try to consider breaking everything up into chunks so they can feel like they can pause the game and come back to it later if they need to (but if they’re really enjoying your game, they will never want to put it down!). Try not to wear the player out!
Immersive Environments
Being able to explore the world or levels through different times of the day will help give the player a real feel of travelling. They could be traversing a snowy cliff face or exploring a desert through scorching sunshine . How will the weather affect gameplay and how the player travels? What will the world around the player look like at night or when it’s raining? Weather can also be used to represent mood. Maybe there has been a tragic death scene or a sunrise over a great victory. You can be as clever as you like with this, but make sure that all things connect! This also goes for getting the player to explore inside and the outside world. Having a variety of space such as interior and exterior stops the game from feeling the same. Giving the player an objective to move from an open world into a base or building or vice versa helps break things up, but make sure that this all feels natural. Having wider spaces can make the player feel safer but can also mean that you can throw some larger enemies or a big group of smaller enemies in there to give the player a challenge. Or having a tighter or small space to give a more dangerous feel. You might also want to add in a one-on-one battle in a narrower space.
Movement
Rather than moving around left to right, why not move up? Adding height to your world adds character but also gives the player a chance to practice mechanics. It also makes the world feel natural. What games have you played that have always stayed at the same level? Probably not many! By making a player climb to something or move up, it makes them feel that they are progressing to a goal. But what goes up can also come down. Giving the chance to explore something that is below the player continues to expand the world and prompts them to further their explorations to new areas in search of hidden items or collectibles. But some players might also want to jump off of heights to skip animations or speed up their gameplay time; this is where you can decide to add in fall damage if they choose to do this. If a player can jump from heights, be sure to allow the camera to show the player their true height; there is nothing more annoying than jumping down to something that looks like it can be reached and it ends up killing you. If you want the player to avoid doing this, why not add in other methods for their descent, such as ladders, platforms, lifts, or climbable surfaces. There’s nothing more frustrating than finding something in the world that looks like it can be explored and then finding out that it is just there for show. Establishing a visual language in your game will help make sure that the player can determine the difference between somewhere that is explorable and something that is not. Some games use visuals or sounds to determine this. The earlier games in the Pokémon series used a thud sound to determine whether a player can venture past an object. Other games might use low bushes, rocks, and walls that tell the player that they are at the edge of the map or if this area is impassable. Having invisible walls removes the illusion that your world is alive; be sure to avoid this!
Don’t make your ground flat. Add some height and gradient to it to test running and walking. This will help test your mechanics and animations to ensure that all runs smoothly and also that it looks good.
Stack some objects on top of each other to test jumping and climbing. Think about the length and height geometry to test any double jumps or wall runs you might want to include.
Test all mechanics and hazards to ensure the distance, timing, and how lethal they might be to the player. If they don’t kill the player, then they might not be working!
What about combat? Is the player going to fight anything in your world? If so, then you need to create an area to test this. A combat arena is perfect for this, to allow tests on combat systems and enemies. When testing, find a way to have enemies spawn quickly and work with combinations of enemies to create fun and difficulty.
Alternate Pathways
When thinking about box levels , you want to think about how the player will explore your world. We have spoken before about movement and avoiding the player from walking far too much as this can become tiresome and boring. But to complement the different methods of travel we have mentioned before, why not think about different pathways the player can take to achieve their goal? When I say pathways, I mean the different routes that the player can take. Some games use a linear approach with there being only one route the player can take or give the option, and certain routes will include treasure or danger. Genres such as first-person, role-playing games (RPGs) , or driving games require paths to avoid the game from being boring. But if you choose to make paths in your game, which one will the player choose? How can you entice the player to go down a certain path? Will one be more dangerous than the other, but have greater rewards? Will one be shorter than the other? Make sure that one pathway will be more significant than the other. Will you allow the player to backtrack and visit the other path at a later date?
When talking about backtracking and visiting previous places , some might find this boring and tedious; I feel the opposite. Being able to revisit somewhere makes you feel like you are getting the most out of the world and the game. Wouldn’t you like someone to get the most out of your work? However, if this is something that you encourage, try to avoid making the player travel back and forth multiple times as this is when boredom can sneak in. If you decide that the player needs to visit a place more than once or twice, why not make it slightly different, so they feel that they are seeing something new? On the other hand, you should think about other ways that the player can move around the world and your level. These can be unlocked once the player has explored more of the world. The Lego Star Wars games are a great example as certain characters will be able to unlock doors, retrieve collectibles, and complete objectives that couldn’t be completed until they had been unlocked. What if fast-travel or a vehicle couldn’t be unlocked until the game has been completed? This gives the player a reason to come back and revisit a level or the game again once the main story or objective has been achieved. If you are going to include modes of transport, make sure that the player isn’t using them all the time; otherwise, it can make your level feel long and boring. As we have mentioned before, make the experience different and diverse. If you ever feel that your level is long or boring, then it probably is. Adding variety into your level can avoid this and keep the player on their toes. If your player is travelling in one direction, why not add dead ends that have enemies or collectibles at the end of them? This encourages exploration and makes it feel fuller and deeper. This is also an easy way of building out your levels without it being too complex. It expands the life of your level and extends your playtime which is what you want. Don’t ever let your player feel that they are zipping through your game too quickly! That being said, try to have something at the end of these dead ends; if your player explores a few of them but with no reward, they will quickly get bored and not explore anymore. Have something at the end of them, even if it is something they can destroy so they get some achievement out of being there. While doing this in your box levels, it allows you to experiment and test what works for you and the feel of the game.
Mapping
When exploring your world, how will the player keep track of where they have been? Most games will have some way of tracking their whereabouts around the world or have a compass to guide them. Having a map to keep track of this is a perfect way to do so. Some games even provide maps in their game boxes for the player as a souvenir. Grand Theft Auto and The Elder Scrolls series were known for this so the player could put the map on their wall or follow their progress physically as an added touch. When designing a map, this is crucial to show yourself and the design team how the different areas of the game will connect and relate to each other. Where do you want the player to travel? What direction do you want them to take? Will there be secret pathways? Where do you want items to be hidden? These are all things that will be shown on your world design but not on the players of course! One thing I love to read are the walk-through books that come with games. They help show levels and areas of the game that the player can explore to sneak past enemies and find hidden items and are the best way to see how the levels have been designed. It is like taking a sneak peek into a designer’s head and seeing what they were thinking about during the design phase. But what if your game does not have a need for a map? How do you show progression? Super Smash Bros use a method of unlocking characters the more you play. As you progress through the World of Light mode, characters would be unlocked in your roster until you have everyone to play as. Characters could then be purchased within a DLC expansion . But players could tell that they have completed the main segment of the game when they have unlocked all the fighters.
But what if you can see the end of the game or where the player will end up? The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild shows you where you need to travel to for the final mission of the game. Hyrule Castle is set in the center of the world, so wherever you travel, you will always see your destination as you move the camera round. This can also be seen from the highest points in the world, just to remind the player that this will be their final objective. This is an excellent method as the player will always know where they need to go, but also shows that if they get too close to the destination before they are ready, they will encounter enemies that are too strong to defeat. This is a perfect way to deflect any daring players who think they can finish the game before they experience everything!
Idea 1 – What if your player was put somewhere that they didn’t need to be? Sometimes, venturing too far into something can be the best way to create action, tense atmospheres, and location by putting them somewhere that could create danger for them. If they can survive or struggle with this area, would they want to come back again when they are feeling stronger?
Idea 2 – As we have mentioned, exploring is one of the best goals for an environment. By letting the player venture on their own, they can create their own feel for the story and experience things at their own pace. Being able to let players venture out into the world you have made is one of the most satisfying things to feel as a designer. If they love the world you have made, then you can sleep happily knowing you set out what you wanted to achieve!
Idea 3 – As someone in education, I cannot say that I have seen many educational games made. This is due to the stigma of educational games being for “young people” or “not cool.” But there are ways of being able to educate players through games and their story. The Uncharted series teaches the players about some of the history of Nathan Drake and the famous pirate Henry Avery. While the history of these icons was altered to fit the game’s story, the background and why they became famous was taught to the player so they could understand who they were. This is partly why I enjoyed these games so much due to the historical element to them as I love history and what came before!
Idea 4 – We have spoken about morals before, but what if they were tested in the game? (Spoiler inbound!) At the end of Grand Theft Auto V, the player is given three choices, kill either of the two supporting characters or the “deathwish option .” This gave the player the chance to think about their morals and what impact they want to have on the rest of their playtime. You can use choice or consequence to deliver the final moral goal for the game or level. This choice will impact the gameplay for either the rest of the game or for the final cutscene.
In larger open-world games, the player is given the chance to explore the world in their own time or through the means of the story. Grand Theft Auto V is perfect for this as the game will begin in the main city of Los Santos, the playground for most of the game’s story. As the player progresses, they are encouraged to explore further into the world, thus giving the illusion that the world is much bigger than they first expected. Once far enough into the game, they are transported to a new location in the world to now explore there. This then introduces the player to flying vehicles so they can move around the world in new ways. This keeps the gameplay diverse and moves away from land vehicles. Eventually, the player is tasked to chase some cars around the main road of the map, thus completing a full circuit and seeing most of the world in one mission. While the player carries out these tasks, the areas of the map are revealed in the start menu. Only by exploring the map in full using all modes of transport can the player find any easter eggs and hidden weapons.
A good example to consider is The Elder Scrolls : Skyrim as this does a good job of encouraging the player to explore the world around them. Although this map is much larger than GTA V, it follows a similar method of letting the player explore the world through story-based missions. However, there is no possible way to explore the map in its entirety just by playing the story; the player will either need to complete side quests or venture out on their own . A common feature for large open-world games is to give the player the option to fast-travel to previously visited locations. While this might seem obvious to veteran gamers, this is a really useful feature to include if you are thinking of having a larger world for your player. Think back to the movement and getting the player through the levels; if you have a large map, will the player spend most of it on foot? Or will you provide ways to travel across the world?
Player Controls
What is a game if you can’t play it? One of the most important things to playing a game is knowing HOW to play it – whether this is down to the instructions that come with a board game or down to the way to press buttons on your keyboard or controller. Either way, the player needs to know the best way to play the game and if the way you have decided the player needs to be played is possible. Sounds simple? But button mapping is crucial when working with controls for a game. Again, sounds simple. But the designing of this takes time and care.
With this in mind, we now need to think about ergonomics, which is the study of equipment fitting with the worker, or in our case, how the controller or keyboard will work with our player. When designing controls, you need to consider the placement of a player’s hands. For example, a first-person shooter typically has the player’s hand on the mouse and the other on the WASD keys . You’ll notice that when you go to watch someone play on a PC, their hands will land in that position without thinking about it. You’ll notice that this also happens when picking up a controller, your fingers tend to land on the triggers or bumpers, left thumb on the left stick and the right thumb onto the A or X key. Funny, isn’t it? It’s muscle memory and shows our hands are ready to play! (This is also down to the comfortability for the player.) As the player progresses further into the game, they start to learn and remember the controls you created. Over time, they start to associate the muscle movement to the controls without even knowing.
When thinking about a keyboard and a controller, designers tend to give every button on a controller a function, but you don’t need to do that for a keyboard . The last thing you want is to give a function to all 26 letters on a keyboard, as it can soon become too much! Keeping the controls localized and near each other, you’ll soon see that your game becomes easy to play and comfortable for the player. If your game requires the player to take their hands off the mouse to reload their gun while aiming, you’ll soon see that your player is typing rather than playing!
Ever thought about making games for a younger audience? Think about those small hands that might be holding a typical sized controller or trying to reach their fingers for buttons on a keyboard. Try to keep button functions simple and close together. Also, think about combinations of buttons; will a child be able to remember or react quick enough to press keys for an action?
Everyone loves a fighting game and going head-to-head with a friend or the computer. But these games are notorious for creating complex combinations to pull off some amazing attacks. I can’t say that I have played many fighting games in my time (mine were always the DC Injustice series), but I still can’t master quick combinations to defeat my enemies (it might just be down to my reflexes!). Don’t get me wrong, I love a fighting game as much as the next gamer, but be sure to think about the combinations that need to be carried out and how likely the player will be able to complete them.
What about offering the player some control over their controls? Sometimes, a player prefers to use a southpaw method or even something new. Giving the player some control over how they play the game is always helpful, especially when it comes to accessibility options (something that will be covered in a later chapter).
When moving in a vehicle, are you wanting to give a realistic or simplistic control scheme? In the good old days of playing racing games such as Need for Speed on the Game Boy Advance, acceleration was carried out when holding down the A button while the R button was braking or reversing. Fast forward to today, it can be the other way around. The right trigger might be to accelerate, and the A button might be to use a handbrake. The more buttons you have, the more creative you can be.
I have mentioned this briefly before about not knowing what to do at the start of a game, or even in the middle of a game, but there have been times where I didn’t know what to do in a level, so I hit every button there was on the controller! This was with the hope that something might happen! But this needs to be avoided at all costs, as the last thing you want is for your player to feel confused about what they do next or if they forget the controls. Don’t let the player resort to button mashing! Unless it’s a fighting game, and you may end up pulling off that awesome move that you didn’t think was possible , then you can thank me later! But then you might want to push all the buttons again to find out what the combination is that you pressed to pull off that move.
What if you have a button that does nothing? What will be the point in having it at all? Will you have the player remove the button when they’re not using it? Of course not! Never have a button rendered useless or not used. There may be times where the player might not be able to shoot as they are out of ammo, so what do you want the shoot button to do? Will it play a noise to indicate that you have no ammo? Will pressing it make the player switch weapons to one that has ammo? Will you have buttons and abilities unlocked over time? In some tutorials, the player has to progress far enough into a game before they can use a button or a combination of buttons. Just remember to teach the player a new move in turn, not to have them being taught all at once. This can get very confusing!
What is the next best thing to a button? An analog stick! This useful little stick is the foundation for so many mechanics in all manner of games and is your best friend when it comes to playing. The best thing about this is that you get to play with two of them! Most typically known for movement, the left stick is perfect to replicate real-world action, whether it be directional or steering. The analog stick used to be used for simulators to create a realistic experience of piloting a vehicle. Now, we can use the smaller version of that same stick to move our character through the world or pilot a plethora of vehicles we see. A clever use of the stick is when the player needs to balance when walking across something. In Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Nathan Drake must walk across a fallen tree which results in him having to keep his balance. At the time of the PS3, the console introduced motion into its controllers, but the player could either use this motion control or the stick to balance Nathan before he could plummet his way to death. The left stick is seen as the more diverse stick compared to its twin. The right stick is typically used as the camera controller to allow the player to look around the world or to aim a weapon or target. Sometimes, the left stick might be used to target a shot fired in some of the recent Lego Games . While holding down the shoot button (X or square if you’re on a console), you can then move the target to where you would like to shoot. The right stick might also make an appearance if the player needs to complete a combination of moves or a mechanic, but it’s safe to say that the left gets more action!
Left stick – Movement
X/A – Jump/double jump
Circle/B – Force ability or holstering of weapon
Triangle/Y – Change character or enter vehicle
Square/X – Attack
Notice how the control pad (the arrow keys on a controller, also known as a D-pad) and the right stick don’t make an appearance? They don’t in earlier Lego Star Wars entries, but more recent games have included the right stick with more open-world environments and added the use of the bumpers to change character. But the concept of moving the character and using the basic buttons makes the games very easy to play and pick up after years of not playing. But what happens if the player needs to use two buttons at the same time? And what if they are with the same thumb? Madness! But Spider-Man PS4 uses this method to use a supercharged attack when building up enough attack combinations. This means the player needs to press circle and triangle at the same time to deliver this special attack. This is a common method to use but make sure that the player has the reach for the buttons. If you are making them press the triangle, left trigger, and down on the D-pad while also moving forward and aiming up, it will confuse the player and make this impossible to attempt. Feel free to try it, but you might find that you’ll struggle! Simple and memorable is how you need to design controls. Make sure that the player can reach them but also achievable!
The last thing to think about for your controller is the vibrations. With the way technology and how we play games has evolved, the way we feel games and how they respond to us has also changed. In recent years, a controller has gone from just a simple shake in the player’s hands to a situation where vibrations will reflect something that is happening progressively. For example, one of the earliest games I can remember playing where the vibrations felt that they were reflecting what was happening was a heartbeat sensor in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Being able to hide in a snowstorm while looking at the sensor to see if there was an enemy nearby was a clever use of vibrations. While I may not have been looking at the sensor all the time, the vibrations were able to help me tell whether someone was getting close. Vibrations can be your friend; if you can find a way to make them feel that they are responding to the player’s actions, then you are onto a winner.
The PlayStation 5 brought in a new way to feel triggers and actions within a game. Sony introduced adaptive triggers to give the player the feeling that they were pulling on a real trigger or pressing down on an accelerator. If you ever find yourself developing for a PlayStation 5 and you have the option to incorporate this into your game, go for it! This is just my opinion however, but I think this feature is awesome!
Bonus Stage: The Name of the Game
In all the game design lessons I have been part of, this is one of the trickiest questions to ask my students. Some projects my students make do not end up with names and have placeholders, or the placeholder's name became the name of the game. While this can be a fun process or activity to think about, it can sometimes be tricky to think of a name. I tend to tell my students that the name will come later in development and that there is no harm to pitch a game with no name yet.
Numbers – Simple and effective, it keeps the player informed of the progression of the game. This was the typical way to show the player that they were progressing through the game. Super Mario used this with World 1-1. The player could tell that they were moving through worlds and levels, but they would never know how many levels there were until they completed the game. It also lacks personality by only giving a number.
Location – Sometimes, naming the level after the place the level is set can be the best way to tell the player where they are located. Although this has its benefits, it may not always be what the player thinks. You could call a level Police Station, but have the location stormed by enemies. Look at what happened in Batman: Arkham Knight when Gotham PD was surrounded (spoilers!).
Chapter names – A common method for games to use while treating the game like a novel. Sometimes, using chapter titles such as Endgame , The End, or From Small Beginnings can be ominous and keep the player guessing. You can be creative with this method, but the names are not always remembered, and the levels are referred to by their gameplay.
Why not be clever with your level titles? Some designers like to leave hints within their level titles to foreshadow something. Dead Space used this method and left a hidden message using the first letter of every level! I will leave you to play the game to find that message!
Conclusion
- 1.
What do you need to consider when designing a level?
- 2.
Control setup and what makes a game easy to play through a controller
- 3.
Designing your game’s world
- 4.
Mapping your game through the world and levels
With another chapter now complete, we can now start to think about filling your game world with enemies . What will they look like? How will they be defeated? But more importantly, what is their purpose? All of these will be considered as we reach the halfway point of the book!