How to guide player attention using Level Design?

Hello,

My name is Gabriela, I am a collage student from Brazil currently developing my TIC ( term paper? ) where we have to research a given topic and develop a game using this research. I am currently studying about how to guide player attention using Level Design, like they do in movies ( with buildings, light and shadow, Giant monumets, etc ).

I would like to get some data from you guys regarding wich games you have played and have gotten lost in and why. And I would also like to ask you about a game that you have played and didn't feel lost at all, like the game was perfectly telling you where to go.

Thank you all in advance!

Gabriela

 

Hi Gabriela, There is a couple of great videos out there that show just this. One shows how Fallout 4 used the level design to draw the player's attention to important parts of the game. Another is Firewatch which uses Unity. Another really great video is one I saw on Witcher's city expansion pack, Hearts of Stone.

If you google for those, you should be able to find them all. Great games and the way they describe the level design in the videos was amazing. Lots of great ideas for your paper and for our games. Good luck to you!

 

Some methods that are quite common (Or atleast I think they're common... I'm no expert but just things that I'vecome to think about by playing games.) is to make use of audio effects, colors, lighting and world details. (The player is far more likely to pay attention to an area that appear to be much more detailed and have more complex geometry, in comparison to an area next to it that might be flat and boring.)

Also, what Teila said. There are numerous resources on the web for this subject.

 

Well, this is a community of developers.

If you want gamer opinions, you might try a game forum rather than a development forum.

 

Also look up some video discussions of the world design in Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

That game does a fantastic job of guiding the player's attention to landmarks that help keep them oriented in a non-linear open world.

 

I have some video handy on hand, I'm sharing:

Spoiler: video about POI and leading

In order of increasing complexity and length

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGWHxQ2WcBE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HMtju0BjAo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDr5wG3XM4I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2wQNTQuDDo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4uPwhSqW8Q

If you stick to those who don't seem relevant you will be surprise (ex manifold garden)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEF4GVNzkUw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ99gAb4T0o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpOoTAVeEcU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6__ftHSEfM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed2zmmcEryw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_kL_RVMGbg

 

Dark Souls leads the player in a very interesting and unique way. Unlike most games, the level architecture and visuals will often lead the player in the wrong direction on purpose, and game leads them to the correct path instead using enemies and obstacles.

For example, at the beginning of the game the player finds themselves facing a tall ruined structure, so obviously this is the first place they explore; however the correct path is actually to ignore the ruins completely and follow a narrow ridge to the left of the ruins. There are plenty of rewards for exploring the ruins, but this path leads them into a down a path that is full of skeletons that are very difficult for a character at a low level (especially if the player has never played dark souls before). So after dying many many times, the player reaches the conclusion that there must be another way to go, so they double back and ahoy they stumble upon this narrow path. Along here they find new enemies that are much easier than the skeletons.

About halfway through the game, after following one of the most stunning visuals in the game to it's climax, I know I was expecting some grand gate on the other side, but I definitely wasn't expecting a dead end. Instead, the game opens up gates at various places throughout the entire game world, but doesn't tell that they were opened at all. The interesting thing here is that this step unlocks fast traveling around the world, which indirectly tells the player that the right path is somewhere you've been before. Now because the game encouraged/forced the player to explore the wrong areas earlier in the game, they will know where to go now.

I've never played a game that leads you the way Dark Souls does, but it's effect is incredible. It teaches the player to explore everywhere, and to think for themselves rather than just follow where the game tells them to go. You get lost, but it ends up helping you to do so. I think this is one of the reasons people speak so highly of the level design in dark soul

 

@TyrannicGoat
That is quite interesting.

(In my opinion ) There are situations where you do not want to guide the player.
But these are never explored in the blockbuster AAA games, like uncharted and tomb raider, and they tend to stick to a very familiar and predictable formula (which can lead to a boring experience).

I generally think that game design are still at it's infant stage, and a lot of solutions are still unexplored.
Hence, I tend to take "this is how you do it" solutions with a grain of salt. But of course it's important to know of those as well, to avoid reinventing the wheel.

 

Visual techniques-

• Lighting: Bright things draw the eye, as do changing things. You can point out a path by illuminating it more than the surrounding area. You can point out items by making them shimmer or flash. Grabbable ledges are often colored white or brighter colors to make them stick out from the rest of the geometry.

• Camera Framing/Angle: The rule of thirds, perspective lines, the horizon line, the golden ratio- all apply to games just as well as with painted art or film. You can't rely on them as heavily here, as you aren't always in control of the camera angle, but you can still work it. I seem to remember far cry 4's white Tiger would always walk to the appropriate side of doorways to to properly compose the image for the moment you would walk up and look out the doorway to a sweeping vista.

Audio techniques-

• Directional Sound: Things that are loud, abrupt, or significantly different from the ambience draw attention. Directional sound can even point that attention in a direction. Gunshots coming from your right can alert you to where an enemy is.

• Sound Effects: Players learn to associate sound effects with the things that make them. If you have an animal that growls when it is close to the player, the player will learn to look for that animal when they hear that sound. I hear Dead Space used this to great effect, playing the sound associated with a particular enemy even when no enemy was near- this kept the player from feeling comfortable, and causing the player to look around constantly.

Narrative techniques-

• Quests: If you want the player to go somewhere, make it worth their while- a quest can be a good way to put the player on a specific track, from which you can branch out.
• Dialogue: The way NPC's talk about a place may clue the player in to what can be found there.

I think it really comes down to speaking a language that the player can learn and intuit. Skulls means trolls, chain jangling means ghosts, a white ledge means a place to grab ect.

Introducing the player to a concept in a controlled environment allows them to see how it works, so that they can recognize and interpret it later on.

 

A YouTube series called Game maker's tool kit made an excellent video about this. Look it up!

 

It is linked already in neoshaman's post above