Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
VEHICLE SIMULATIONS
Reward skillful maneuvering.
All vehicle simulations offer steering a vehicle as
the primary player activity and steering well, often in adverse circumstances, as the
primary challenge. Construct levels that test the player's skill at maneuvering his
vehicle and reward him for his prowess. Other challenges, such as shooting or
exploring, should be secondary.
CONSTRUCTION AND MANAGEMENT SIMULATIONS
Offer an interesting variety of initial conditions and goals.
Most construction
and management simulations (CMS) start the player with an empty space and let
her build whatever she likes within the constraints of the game's internal economy.
In such games, you won't need to do much level design. However, a CMS can also
offer the player an existing or partial construction and let her continue working
from there, often with a goal to achieve within a certain time limit. These are nor-
mally called
scenarios
rather than
levels
, the difference being that a scenario, unlike
a level, consists of a self-contained situation unrelated to any of the other scenar-
ios. Typically the game allows players to try the scenarios in any order, and the
gameplay (though not the goal) tends to be identical in each. Because you cannot
alter the gameplay, scenario design becomes a matter of offering an interesting
variety of initial conditions and goals.
SimCity 3000 Unlimited
comes with 13 sce-
narios, from reuniting East and West Berlin to preparing for a World Cup soccer
match in Seoul.
ADVENTURE GAMES
Construct challenges that harmonize with their locations and the story.
Adventure games offer much of their entertainment through exploration and puz-
zle-solving. Designers set different chapters of an adventure game in different
locations or landscapes to add novelty and interest to the experience. (A chapter is
the adventure game equivalent of a level.) Create challenges that harmonize with
the current level and with the current events in the story. In a room full of machin-
ery, the challenges should involve machines; on a farm, the challenges should
involve farm animals or implements. This principle applies to some extent to any
game, but because story is so important in adventure games, the principle is espe-
cially important for that genre.
ARTIFICIAL LIFE GAMES
Create many interaction opportunities for the creatures in their environment.
Much of the enjoyment in playing an artificial life (A-life) game comes from watch-
ing the simulated creatures in the game and giving them things to do within their
environment. The level designer for an A-life game, then, needs to create interac-
tion opportunities. The game should also offer many opportunities for the player
to interact with the creatures as well, but generally the game designer, not the level
designer, specifies these.
