I’m not going to talk about what I did to fulfill
requirements for the assignment, instead I'm going to go through what I learned in designing a level.
Essentially what I should do and what I should not do for a puzzle. These dos
and don’ts are up for debate but I feel these are things that really help in level
design.
My designed level (With testing and additional content from teammates)
NOTE TO THOSE MARKING THIS ASSIGNMENT : ONLY READ THIS BLOG POST AFTER PLAYING THE LEVEL
What to do!
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Make it obvious what
a button does
When triggering a button, you need to make sure that you see
it affects the environment around you. This means if you press a button, a cube
should drop down for you to use right in front of you or near you. It shouldn’t
be all the way across the map where you can’t see or hear it.
The reason we do this is because that way it won’t confuse
the player needlessly. Have a button be in viewing distance of what the result
is going to do, or at least keep it close enough so that players will see the
result without having to search too much. Having an obvious audio queue can
also work but isn’t as effective. We need to provide the player some feedback
on their actions otherwise it’s needlessly harder. If we want to make a puzzle
harder, it should be because they need to think about how to solve a puzzle,
not more difficult because they need to find out what your button did and where
it dropped the cube.
Laser gate off. The button is in plain site of the laser field so it's easy to tell what the button did.
In my level, I’ve positioned all my buttons in such a way as
if you look close to them, you will see the result immediately or soon enough.
For example, a button will drop the cube right next to you, or will raise a
bridge right in front of you.
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Lead a path for the
player
In other words, don’t make a giant room that doesn’t look
like it has any particular order or requires a lot of back tracking. The reason
we would want to lead the player is because we want them to get to our puzzles,
this isn’t an adventure game. Now there is a limit as to how much we should lead
the player, don’t point out everything for them, but point enough out for them
to get somewhat of an idea of where to go. Don’t have three paths and in no
sequential order scattered about.
The purpose for this game is for players to solve puzzles,
not wander around like an adventure game. Though designers could attempt making
a level like this, the main draw to playing portal is puzzles. Any moving
around without doing any actual puzzle solving could be considered boring. Walking
around to get to the end of the hall just isn’t fun.
The goal is in sight, all you need to do is figure out how to disable the threats in your way
For my level I lit up the path (This was actually a
requirement for our levels) but I also made it very linear, you can actually
see your final destination right away. I made it obvious where you need to be,
you just have to figure out how to get past the obstacles in your way. Some key
areas are also highlighted by lights though you still have to figure out how to
solve the puzzle once you get there.
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Allow some mistakes
The player is going to make mistakes and we shouldn’t always
punish them too terribly with them. One bad thing to do is make it so if
players pass a certain point, but forget something they become permanently
stuck and have to restart the level. This is especially terrible if there isn’t
even much of a clue that continuing without a key object will end up this. I
made a jump in one level to test and found out I became stuck at the bottom
because I couldn’t portal to anywhere else.
For my level, it is possible to return all the way to the beginning if you dropped a cube
One debatable thing is the use of precision mistakes. For
example I played a level where I had to use a reflection cube to aim a laser to
a laser catcher to cross a bridge. If at any time the laser slipped off, the
bridge would fall under me. Now this is difficult to cross and it’s a neat idea
but for some players it can be frustrating because they know exactly what to do
but one small slip up leads to restarting a level. This can lead to even more
frustration if this is right at the end of a level meaning you have to do
everything all over again because of that. If I were to use this in a level, I
would just force them to restart the bridge, not restart the level. Either that
or have a checkpoint right at that spot.
On the topic of checkpoints, one thing to do for a level is
that if you plan to have a very dangerous area where players will die, try to
keep it closer to the beginning rather than the end. This way if they make the
mistake of dying, they will be able to retry as soon as possible rather than
having to go through the same beginning puzzles over and over. Eventually that
just becomes a chore because you already know how to solve everything at the
beginning and have to keep doing it over and over.
Precision mistakes are minimal as the player is given the whole length of the level to try aiming this laser
How I used this in my level, you ride across a tractor beam
throughout the level, spotting obstacles in the distance. You can also see
these obstacles before riding the tractor beam too. I ensured that players
could return to the beginning of the level by raising a bridge if they forgot
anything important. To solve my puzzle, I also give you ample time and
alternative ways to get to the finish so as to avoid players blaming precision
mistakes. At the end of the level, you have to destroy some turrets with a
laser beam and using a reflection cube. The farther back you start on the
tractor beam the more time you have to target the turrets in your path. There
is also a fairly wide window you have to destroy the turrets even if you start
as far forward as possible.
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Don’t have “Troll”
buttons
Try not to have buttons that will screw
over the player, especially into death. Don’t have a button that immediately
kills a player for pressing it, unless it’s obvious that’s what the result will
be. Don’t have buttons that randomly cause effects like that or put you at the
beginning of a level unless you make it clear pressing it will have that
effect. It will only serve to frustrate players and make the experience worse.
These two button (left) in my level used to be unhelpful. This has been rectified.
For my own level, I did in fact have a “troll” button, where
activating it would not really help you. It wouldn’t kill you or set you back,
but it wasn’t helpful either. Players in general will want to press the buttons
and have them do an effect of some sort that will help. My buttons simply disabled
the laser that would allow you to kill the turrets blocking you from the end of
the level. Now I have it so pressing the buttons will instead activate the
laser so that you can proceed. I made the button actually give some benefit for
the player.
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Get rid of anything
useless
This one should be fairly obvious and it’s to make sure not to have any areas that look like they mean something, but they don’t actually do anything. So don’t have a bunch of buttons in an area but pressing them actually does nothing. It will only confuse the player even more, similar to the problem I mentioned earlier of having buttons who’s effects are obvious. Don’t have corridors that lead to nowhere either, they should be either a means to complete a puzzle or a way to get to another puzzle. This is similar to the troll button issue except these serve to waste time rather than frustrate the player.
The button behind this cube is given use to flip the turret in the distance. It may be a one time use, but it always benefits the player.
For my level, I got rid of any extra areas that weren’t
needed. I had a small corridor that had a reflection cube but I got rid of the
cube because I had already provided a reflection cube at the beginning of the
level. Hence I made sure to get rid of the corridor later because it wouldn’t
make the puzzle any better. I also made sure every one of my buttons did
something meaningful. This is also part of the reason I changed the buttons
that disabled the laser (noted in the trolling section), because they didn’t
actually help you at all. You could get by without even touching them, which
confuses a player even more.
Difficulty vs.
Accesibility
Level beaten!
Everything I have said is relating to making everything
easier to understand for players. It is my belief that it’s a very good
practice. There is a reason that Portal & Portal 2 did so well in their
campaigns despite them being brief. It’s because they were all very accessible,
pretty much anyone could go through the game and enjoy it. They pretty much
adhered to all the “What to do”s that I mentioned. Everything was clear and
straight forward, the difficulty was in figuring out the puzzle, with no other
issues in the way.
Think about it, if you suddenly had useless buttons, buttons
that changed things in the level far away, way out of your sight then that’s
just going to confuse and frustrate you right? That’s not confusion by logic,
it’s just confusion to frustrate, it does not benefit the player experience in
anyway. Sure it can promote observation but the key to making levels that will
appeal to players is to make it accessible and it’s easily possible to keep
observation too.
That’s the point of good level design to draw in players, to
make them want to play even if it’s difficult. You want to make players like
your levels and play through the game. If word gets out your game is broken,
punishes players and is confusing in its level design, people don’t want to
play. So making accessible, but difficult levels is really the best way to go.
It’s simply good level design.
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