http://i40.tinypic.com/2hydpic.jpg 

it's funny - i hate getting lost, but I love non-linear level design. My favourite levels in any sort of game are the ones where you have multiple objectives/routes from the start, and you can visit them in any order. Even if the choice of which one to tackle first is not a meaningful choice, I still love the feeling of freedom it gives. I suppose I am exactly the sort of audience for games that give you a map - go wherever the hell you want, but here's a map so you never get lost. 

Having multiple paths cost development / testing time which ultimately cost money. I remember working on a certain game and we wanted several paths through a level, it would have been so cool. We were told no because it would have meant extra time for QA to test it, extra time for Art to create additional assets and coders were not happy because it meant a larger file size (DVDs are not endless space apparently!)

Even after all those arguments we were told no from the publisher! Choice is an awesome concept but it costs time and not every developer / publisher can afford it.

I am sure if you speak to any developer about extra routes, choice, non-linear play and most will agree it is awesome but nowadays games are too complex to create / make even without the extra stuff. That is not to say all games are linear, some still exist but they are rare. 

...Which leads me to a question.

What do people think about the objective arrow system used in games like Oblivion and Skyrim - where you have little direction indicators at the top of the screen telling you where to head, letting the designer just plonk you in any environment and know you won't get lost.

The reason I ask is this: would I be chased into the night with pitchforks and shovels if I was to make a Quake level that was basically "press X buttons in the level lol", but was really non-linear/free-roaming and it used some sort of objective arrow system? (i don't know yet what this would be, whether it's something floating in front of player to appear as if it's on his HUD (yuk), or something a bit more subtle - maybe some sort of texture with arrows on that you find on walls or floors in junctions, but the arrow(s) can change to point in different directions depending on your objective(s)). Is this an awful idea? 

maybe some sort of texture with arrows on that you find on walls or floors in junctions, but the arrow(s) can change to point in different directions depending on your objective(s))

I think the dm456sp by negke did exactly that, and it was okay (aka not overly coercive (then again how the fuck is an arrow not ever coercive?)). 

i think the issue here is that you only want arrows when the player gets lost, and the player's realisation that he's lost generally comes when he gets to a junction and thinks "which bloody corridor do I go down to get back to the sodding GK door?" If I identified some important junctions and placed dynamic arrows there, I guess it could work. 

dynamic arrows

What if the arrows were written on wheels, and you could actually see some of them hiprotate when you press a button?? 

kinn: just try it and see how it goes.
i'd argue it might be better if you could work these "arrows" into the map itself... so like a visible building with something like lightning or flames or something to communicate that that place is important somehow. 

For some reason I did not care about the pacman dot trail in Fable 2 or the markers on the map / compass in Skyrim. I just wanted to get to the location and do what I was suppose to do, fight, find loot and have fun.

If you want to be clever then build your anti-getting-lost system with good art. Like have runes that change to obvious directions after a timer when the player is in an area. I am always disappointed with Quake levels that have arrows pointing somewhere because the design is saying go a different direction.

This is a classic thing to do in SP design btw, player enters area, timer starts, then hints start to appear in the environment or HUD. I would suggest decals and cool shader effects then I remembered it was Q1, but you could be clever with movers or sound. 

You could also use lights. As the level progresses, you could turn off some fill lights in specific corridors where you don't want the payer to go anymore. Nothing major, but we naturally gravitate towards areas with more light in them so it might be subtle enough to work... 

@Kinn, I know I probably made you run to the hills with my crazy email about textures but have you decided what art style you are going with? It will ultimately help with your method of trying to give the player directions. 

This is a classic thing to do in SP design btw, player enters area, timer starts, then hints start to appear in the environment or HUD. I would suggest decals and cool shader effects then I remembered it was Q1, but you could be clever with movers or sound.

that's interesting... a progressive hint system. 

I'd put in an arrow or some kind of primitive radar for the UI, as being obvious is a lesser evil to the player getting totally lost. You can still make the directions fairly vague, but just make sure the player has some idea of their progress (ie how many things they have left to collect/activate etc) and general hints on where to go.

I really think Serious Sam 3 has some great levels in it, surprisingly intricate with cool fights, but it really needed Painkiller's arrow to tell you where to go because arenas could be so big with lots of buildings and after fighting for ten minutes you lost track of where you entered and where you were supposed to go.

Also generally as graphics get more detailed I find games are getting less and less effective at pointing out where to go through architectural or lighting cues (though this could also just be that they've stopped trying and just put a UI marker in. I reckon L4D did very well in giving general hints as to where to go through lighting, but not making it too obvious so progress wasn't instant and in fire-fights you could still loose your sense of location.

Rage had some cool levels and some dull ones. The level in the abandoned brewery where you climbed all around the vats and fought mutants climbing up the walls was fun I though :E 

I always think it's a bad sign when you're looking for the way to proceed, find a corridor or jump or something, and find out it's actually a secret :p 

What if the arrows were written on wheels, and you could actually see some of them hiprotate when you press a button??

very cool idea :} I really like this actually.

i'd argue it might be better if you could work these "arrows" into the map itself... so like a visible building with something like lightning or flames or something to communicate that that place is important somehow.

Interesting but the first part of one of my maps has 3 objectives active at once (do in any order) and they are all in indoor locations...

If you want to be clever then build your anti-getting-lost system with good art.

one requirement is that it might need to support multiple objectives e.g. (if you go this way or this way, there's stuff, but not this way). Hmmm...multiple "arrows" pointing down different corridors...

You could also use lights Probably not feasible as all light comes from gothy flames - still could do a "flames go out" setpiece for something though - tbh i can't remember a gothy map that's done that...

@Kinn, I know I probably made you run to the hills with my crazy email about textures but have you decided what art style you are going with?

I haven't recieved any emails...bdwooding - at - gmail.com ?

As for the art style, the whole episode is old and damp and earthy in the good old medieval gothic style. Here's an example of a typical area (please ignore any wip suckiness and lack of texture variation):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61424391/Quake%20Stuff/abbey08.jpg 

Some nice screenshots and a video about the art. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/19/be-honoured-lots-of-dishonored-screenshots/ 

In my original post I was more bemoaning the lack of really 3d spaces and reuse of area by having routes that loop back multiple times through the same area - something common in Quake maps, but less so in more modern games. Perhaps the best example of underusing the structure of a level I can think of is Bullet Storm. That game had so many epic areas and so much time was obviously spent on the environment art, but the gameplay was little more than walk into room, kill a bunch of shit and proceed to the next room. In addition, the gameplay was very flat - it was a fun game, however.

When you look at Quake levels (even the stock id levels) they are full of verticality and passing again through the same areas from multiple angles. This doesn't seem to be terribly common in more recent games, but there are sometimes levels where you are forced into a small environment (a house, boat etc.) for a prolonged period and thus the environment is better exploited.

Given how much time and resources are spent on decorating areas, it doesn't seem like a great use of those resources to just make one long environment, but better to actually design the level in a way that takes progression back through existing areas in a way that makes sense.

There are a few reasons I can think for avoiding intricately interwoven levels:
*vertical areas are more difficult for console players to handle due to the often reduced field of view and slow speed of rotating the view on a controller.
*it might not make sense in the game's story, whereas a Quake level has no real story and designers tend to just do stuff because it's cool or fun.
*many modern games have a real world setting, which somewhat limits the scope for complex level layouts as designers want to keep their levels feeling realistic and functional.

Anyway, more examples of modern games with interesting level design would be nice. 

I certainly wouldn't hate you for employing a "find X buttons to open exit" style of design! I remember being impressed a long time ago by a speedmap Lunaran made that has exactly that kind of gameplay. I think it was basically a DM map with lots of grunts and some buttons, but it played well (and looked quite nice considering how quickly it was made.)

My current map is a similar kind of design, but actually the progression is fairly linear at the moment. You have to find 5 sacred tomes and read them and the order is not important, but actually, the design of the level kind of forces the player into a linear route :/ Maybe I should try and free it up a little. 

The hard rain campaign in L4D2 is one of the more interesting level designs I've seen in a recent game (although it's not too fresh now and I can't play new releases on this machine). The map is a there and back fetching mission, but two things combine to make it interesting.

Firstly the level floods between going out and coming back, so returning by the original path becomes a slow trudge through water. At the same time different combinations of one-way drops make it so that the shortest route back is quite different to the shortest path forward.* It's all really clever and I recommend you grab a chance to have a look at it.


*The one way drops are also an interesting feature for the versus gameplay, as separating members of the survivor team is often the best way to deal damage on them. The one-way drops give you a chokepoint for your attacks, but they aren't irreversible - which is good for balance. If your teammate is caught in front of a one-way drop you've taken, you can go back and save them by taking the intended route for the other direction's journey. Still, the loop takes time so there's usually a good amount of damage as reward for the play. 

was wondering the very same thing.

Guess I might check out the latest Wolfenstein and perhaps that other Raven game with the time travel. Are they worth playing? 

I am an idiot

Spirit linked an old post in another thread, I was multitasking and forgot that it was an old post and then replied to it :)

Yes, L4D2 has some cool level design. Hard Rain is very memorable indeed. 

Perhaps the best example of underusing the structure of a level I can think of is Bullet Storm. That game had so many epic areas and so much time was obviously spent on the environment art, but the gameplay was little more than walk into room, kill a bunch of shit and proceed to the next room. In addition, the gameplay was very flat - it was a fun game, however.

Not played bullstorm but iirc Painkiller was exactly like this (epic impressive environment art dressing up essentially a series of huge box rooms), from the same developer incidently.

The interesting thing with Painkiller is that the developers were clearly Quake fans, with the general feel of the movement, secrets, trick jumping and all that Quakey stuff, yet they decided not to use any of the level design principles that worked so well in Quake. In many ways the game felt to me as if the levels had been built from scratch by artists with absolutely no communication from the designers as to what gameplay was going to take place in them.

There are a few reasons I can think for avoiding intricately interwoven levels

One argument that was presented to me by an artist was that if you have a big open area, the most environmental detail can be focused around the playable space, and built with a certain direction of movement in mind, and the background stuff can be largely optimised as the player won't get close to it. If you take the same large area but you make the playable space occupy a greater % of the overall space (e.g. you allow the room to be traversed in different ways at different times), then the average density of detail required goes right up. Personally I think that decent design can make that a fairly weak argument but it is food for thought.

I remember working on an action platformer a few years back where the lead artist was trying to convince us to use a God of War-style fixed camera so that all they had to worry about was essentially two back walls and a floor :)

We went with a proper "look anywhere" 3rd person camera thankfully. 

I certainly wouldn't hate you for employing a "find X buttons to open exit" style of design!

Cheers! At least I know one person will play it then :}

Maybe I should try and free it up a little.

I think it can make for a more rewarding experience both for the player and the mapper - It's funny, making a level that's very non-linear gives me a wierd sense of nerdy glee, as if I'm crafting a real functional place, rather than piecing together a predictable script. One worry though is that the encounter design could suffer, as I need to accomodate the fact that the player infil points and order in which he encounters monsters is going to be pretty damn unpredictable for the most part... 

Fuck yes/ fuck you - looks totally awesome and perfectly detailed/scaled. 

Thanks!

Tbh, I didn't intend to pimp this early (as you can tell from the unaligned textures and stuff) :}