Meaningful Choice in Game Level Design
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- čas přidán 14. 12. 2015
- In this GDC 2014 talk, veteran level designer Matthias Worch (Unreal 2, Dead Space 2) conducts a provocative talk on why a game is "a series of interesting decisions". As he notes: "What is "orthogonal unit differentiation" and why is it important? Meaningful choice is one of the staples of good and compelling game design, but as a concept it is still poorly understood and has rarely been explored in detail. This is especially true for the discipline of level design."
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Ich danke dir von Herzen Matthias! Das ist auf jeden Fall einer der faszinierendsten und inspirierendsten Talks die ich je gesehen habe. Die Aufbereitung, Verknüpfung und Beleuchtung der Informationen ist atemberaubend. Es half mir zum einen einiges zu verstehen über meine Genre-Präferenzen und warum mich gewisse Aspekte an Spielen immer mehr gekickt haben als andere, und zum anderen, ist es für mich als 3D Artist und Solo Developer pures Gold, diese Aspekte beim Design meiner eigenen Spiel-Projekte zu fokussieren und zu lernen, sie praktisch anzuwenden. Was ich auch total faszinierend finde, ist, dass die "gerade so zu dechiffrierenden, interessanten Muster" auch ein großer Teil in der Kunst sind, den es zu begreifen gilt, wenn man ansprechende und gut aussehende Kunst machen möchte, egal ob Maler oder Modeler. Selbst in der Musik ist dieses Prinzip des "Schichtens von Komplexitäten" wichtig. Ich sehe nun das auch im Game Design, Enemy und Level Design, diese Balance zwischen Chaos und Discovery genauso wichtig ist. Es ist als wären diese Art Muster die Ur-Formel für alles, was man interessant gestalten möchte und was mit Menschen/Spielern resoniert. Für mich ist diese Erkenntnisse absolut atemberaubend und bereichernd. Ohne deinen Talk wäre ich nie darauf gekommen bzw. hätte es vermutlich Jahre gedauert, um auf diesen Aspekt zu stoßen, ggf. dass ich hätte die Puzzleteile überhaupt zusammenführen können. Ich komme hier gerne öfter wieder her, schau wieder rein, refreshe oder mach Notizen und Screenshots. Sehr wertvoll, was du hier zusammengestellt hast. Megageil. Zeitlos.
I learn more about life from GDC than I ever learned from school. Even from the not-so-good talks.
Incredible value their. Thank you!!!!!!
And the moment with the DJ moving patterns... It'll change me deep inside as a designer for sure
Brilliant talk. I never knew how to articulate that type of design for FPS games. The visual with the sine curves overlaid one on top of another really drove the point home.
This is a great talk. Very clear and thought provoking.
The talk is great, and I love he picked Doom to show these things. I've played countless of hours of it, and everything that was said resonated 100%.
great talk, learned a lot
Great talk. Many thanks. :)
Well done would love to hear about the Koko bird and how it relates to level design, like hiding in camo.
This guy is really smart, great talk!
I feel like the title "Meaningful Choice in Game Level Design" isn't a good title, since It seems to me that there was very little focus on the design of levels.
The focus seemed to on the importance of creating game play which is sufficiently complex such that solving it feels rewarding but not so challenging that players give up.
That is not _how_ you design a level, but rather a goal of level design. The speaker talked about meeting said goals through everything except level design.
He talked about:
1. The need for good controls such that a player is able to be competent.
2. Good feedback such that the player becomes competent.
3. Design of enemies such that in different situations the player must prioritize different things.
4. That 3 can be applied to other things, such as weapons.
The thesis of his talk seems to be that creating systematic agency can make up for a lack of spacial agency. This all seems to be in reference to criticism of Dead Space 2 level design.
TL;DR Dead Space 2 makes up for it linear level design with good controls and game play.
Better title: "What is meaningful choice and how to apply it"
The title could (should?) have been tweaked. But I firmly believe that level designers should know what they should expect from their game systems - making levels against hollow mechanics is like putting lipstick on a pig. That's why I believe this talk is very relevant to level designers themselves.
Matthias Worch Sure, if what you're doing is boring, then it doesn't matter where you do it.
Zekian
I don't like how you imply that linear level design is bad by definition.
A great talk man :)
Loved it, shared it.
Also started with Doom levels, then also made it a job many modding years later. Except that I studied Chemistry. :D
That kind of path is more common than one would think for devs above 30.
Great dissection of Doom on a fundamental level that I was looking for for a long time. Having to defend FPS like Doom for not being "dumb shooters" was getting annoying.
How would you translate Agency to Spanish in this context?
deep
I still didn't understand the "Agency" & "Agent" bit :( .
Player and player interaction, basically.
I don't get it he says "there's two situations in which animals learn one where they don't and one where they do" ???
RIP 1313 T.T
Waaaaait... someone just mentioned Piaget in a game design talk? I am slapped in the face with shock.
It's hard to find a meaningful definition for "meaningful" :)
with purpose. there, did it
Huh?
I think this one was closer to the mark than the first one, but it's still too high-level theoretical if you ask me. It's like 95% meaningful choice and 5% level design, and so you leave the talk thinking "this makes so much sense, i'm gonna go implement it right now!...then you go to your game and you're stuck staring at a blank screen.. A great example of this talk is Shovel Knight's checkpoint system, how you can break the checkpoint for more coins, but then you don't save. Just a bunch of examples like this would have done wonders. I feel like you focused too much on the goal and not enough on the process.
Lumenis of course I can eventually figure out my own processes using this talk. But I could do the same without this talk, using trial and error. The whole reason talks like this are useful then are to accelerate the process. Put us on the fast track to excellence in a given topic. If I have to go through an entire learning cycle after watching the talk then I didn't learn anything from it. It's not hate. Just constructive criticism. There are many other talks that do this, and I can point you to them of you want
First, I've only been a long time hobbyist until recently, so apologies for talking from a place of relative inexperience.
Looking at different understandings, fields, systems, personal philosophies and assumptions drastically expands what you can draw on when approaching problems. That's why designers always talk about adding to a "toolbox"; there are no hard and fast rules and the rabbit hole goes infinitely deep and wide. Breaking down assumptions and the full implications of novel paths of thought actually are often the quickest ways of learning.
As for implementation, it's almost a designer's job to constantly think about design philosophy and everything that comes with it (i.e. everything) and how that applies to what you're working on. Trial and error is definitely a major part of learning (and designing) though.
I agree that it would have been good to have more fleshed out examples that tied it back to level design in general, but he was pretty stretched for time. Making those connections is the most enjoyable part, though :P
For level design more broadly, I wish I could recommend texts but I've only started looking into it more seriously recently. Still, from personal experience, there are a lot of different ways to approach it. I usually start by imagining the feel and flow of the level based on design constraints (e.g. place in story, intended game feel at that point, available assets, difficulty and surrounding levels) and then think of how the systems of the game could fit into that in as many different ways as possible, making sure I'm happy with how each bit works before diving into detail. Using novel shapes is an easy way to make things interesting. Of course there's a lot more to it like variety, believability, elegance and simplicity. Also, trialling ideas rapidly and simply at first is hugely beneficial, even with paper cut-outs. My view is start simple, be creative and have fun!
Pety do you have a link to his first talk or know what its called?
Disney Doesn't like SW 1313, why ? non-canon ?
I think he refers to the very safe attitude of Disney to not create new stuff in most fields, but rather use licensing to make money. The true exception is live action and animation. But for games, that's for sure true, especially now that they finished the process of getting rid of AAA studios.
The abstract theory is great, but once he goes into specifics, he just makes a bunch of crutches to compensate for the lack of design talent. Nobody can claim that skill checks and OUD are ALL there is to fun in games, yet the talker seems to imply that by claiming DS2 is just as fun as Doom because it has those 2 elements. Taking Doom as an example, level exploration and resource management that ties into it provide another level of meaningful choice in the game. It can even be explained with the theory from the talk, the exploration lets the player exercise the autonomy, and environmental puzzles that occasionally arise in the process provide competence checks.
To be honest this talk totally feels like a rationalization after the fact, and also Dead Space 1 had more Doomesque levels and it was the better of the series.
Not saying his points are wrong, but they are awfully close to crutches that designers could use to justify bad linear level design.
+Elias Reiniat he specifically says not to "spoonfeed" enemies to the player so i don't see how he's supporting linear level design.
To a degree all analysis is done after the fact, but I don't look at it as rationalization so much as "gaining understanding of your own intuitive choices". DS2 actually was created against a lot of this knowledge, which allowed us to focus efforts. Every game has production realities, linear levels are often a necessity. But I believe that games with them can still be tons of fun, for the reasons mentioned in this talk.
What do you pretend from a German designer?
Throughout playing Deadspace 2, I kept wondering how much better the game could have been if the player had been allowed more freedom. The linear structure of Dead Space 2's level design killed the game for me.
2 minutes of level design and then whole video about weapon choice/enemy mechanics.
I made three assumptions... Oh, fantastic some self critique and evolution of thinking... I assumed everyone understood 3 terms I was using... Sod ya.
I suppose you forgot to upload the "choice part" so far it's just a Doom talk.
Nothing was missing here, on the contrary, it was brilliantly broken down, albeit the underlying abstract concepts are not all that easy to grasp. This is as good as it gets having someone explain this stuff, without having to read countless books on the theory and filter the information out for yourself. DooM is an excellent choice for getting the point across. It seems that you might did not entirely get it, yet. Its definetly worth rewatching.
Does anyone else find it strange that these people are all about being technically skilled but they can't figure out audio on these videos?
what a drag. misleading title
You lost some marks when you ragged on Doom 3.
this guy is totally overthinking it. meaningful choice is subjective to what the game designer defines as meaningful. coming up with some standard for its definition is silly because what works for one game might not work for the other.
So you're saying that there's no such thing as game design theory and people should carry on doing whatever the fuck because nothing is for certain? That's helpful.
Oh, God. This one is awful.
Honestly this is one of the most informative foundational talks I've found on the GDC channel thusfar. What would you say is an example of a better systems design talk?
This guy is stuck in a psycho-philosophical loop, of all this talk he offered no conclusion and his attitude of trying to excuse dead space 2 linear level design is just laughable.
Great at thinking lazy at working.
I don't look at this talk as a rationalization but as an explanation. I can guarantee that nobody on the DS2 team was lazy or looking for easy ways out :)
heh, the legend himself... are you cooking that dead space 4 or do i need to get the whip?