GDC 2018 Level Design Workshop: An expert roundtable Q&A

It's that time again: to prepare for the big GDC 2018 Level Design Workshop on Tuesday, March 20th, a handful of the speakers wanted to warm up by chatting (via email) about some of the finer points of level design. 

Gathering question from the community, they shared some interesting insights, experiences, and learnings in a shared document that's reprinted below for your reading pleasure. 

The participants in this exchange, in no particular order, are:

Robert Yang, NYU video game professor and indie game maker

Blake Rebouche, senior quest designer at Guerrilla Games

Nina Freeman, level designer at Fullbright

Steve Gaynor, game designer and Fullbright cofounder

Heather Robertson, indie game maker

Mike Bithell, game designer and Bithell Games founder

Christopher Totten, game designer and founder of Pie for Breakfast Studios

David Shaver, game designer at Naughty Dog

Nathan Fouts, game designer and founder of Mommy's Best Games

[more detailed bios for everyone are at the end of the piece.]

Each participant was encouraged to respond to every question they felt comfortable answering, so you'll notice that the variety of answers will vary based on the query.

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What tricks do you have to lead the player towards a goal?
This is always a big challenge, regardless of the genre of the game, there's a lot of cop-out's such as obnoxious goal HUD markers, but there's surely also a lot of different ways LD's can mitigate this, even solve it.

Robert Yang: I like using enclosed stairwells. As the player climbs upward, you’re getting them to look up -- and the opening at the top also frames the view for them. I also like the old Valve trick of using sudden flocks of birds to direct the eye, but then you need a bird system in your game?... There’s also two attitudes you can take: (1) it’s OK for the player to get lost sometimes, (2) players don’t actually mind obnoxious HUD markers, even if us developers think it’s artless.

Andrew Yoder: For multiplayer maps, I want the goal and the most mechanically engaging gameplay to be in the same space. When wide flank routes offer the best tactical options, gameplay can become diluted across the map, which creates “where’s my team?!” moments for anyone playing the objective. Also, because the goal in multiplayer games often shifts per situation, it helps to let players change paths and regroup with other players without having to backtrack (this is one reason why long hallways can feel bad).

Chris Totten: Designers should reach into their visual art knowledge for ways to draw players through a space. Contrast is one of the best things to use. One example I demonstrated for students the other day was in Bioshock: Infinite: the designers used contrasting colors to indicate the path. The scenes in the beginning are predominantly blue/purple in lighting, but important points of interest are orange/yellow in color, which contrasts and draws players through the space. Other things to contrast include lighting (humans travel towards light instinctively), level geometry (small path leads to big space or tall object), or material/texture (indications of man-made objects in a natural area or vice-versa.)

David Shaver:  It turns out, this is exactly what my GDC talk is about this year! I don’t want to spoil the talk too much, but here is a super quick version of some important tips. Combining several of these together gets great results.

Heather Robertson: There’s a concept in theme park design called “weenies” -- i.e. large landmarks in the environment to which you make sure to give near-constant line of sight. This gives players a direct goal and a constant reference point with which to orient themselves. If that fails, there’s no shame in just putting signs with big arrows on them around your level. Players will get the idea, and it’s much better than leaving them lost in my opinion.

Nathan Fouts: In our current game, Pig Eat Ball, it’s a top-down 2D action-adventure game. The overworld sections are many screens wide and high. In 2D, we don’t get the benefit of large landmarks that are always visible by simply looking up and around as in 3D.

Instead, for Pig Eat Ball at least, we tried “pathway flooring”. The overworlds are open and the player can go many places to explore, but for the “critical path” parts, we use different floors that make a literal path to the next, necessary section.

Yet after years of testing, we found for some players that wasn’t enough! They’d still get lost. So we simply went for it--Every 5 seconds a tasteful HUD arrow fades in, pointing the way for a few seconds, and then fades out.
It helped many players since, in testing, and hopefully isn’t too obnoxious to players who just want to explore for a while.

How would you factor in player choice at a more fundamental level inside the game world? Would you agree that building a world that can hold many ld stories, as opposed to having one story and building the world around it, is a more advantageous way to design levels?

David:  In order to factor in more player choice, you can include a variety of game mechanics into the level design and have multiple paths that let the player discover and use them. Dishonored does a fantastic job with this. You could stealth around on the ground, teleport to higher vantage points, sneak through small crevices, go in guns blazing, etc.  The levels are like sandboxes that let the player accomplish the goal however they want with whatever tools (mechanics) they think to use.

I don’t really agree that building a world that holds many Id stories is inherently better, though. It all depends on the kind of game you’re making and the kind of tone you’re going for in that level.  For example, if you have a bombastic action sequence where you are trying to escape a deadly helicopter, presenting choice can cause people to pause or go the wrong way which kills the action and pacing.

How do you balance gameplay vs aesthetic goals?

Chris: Rather than think of them as distinct from one another, I try to think how my aesthetics help accomplish gameplay goals. Think of environment art as the words or characters of a language and level design as the conversation you’re having with the player in the language. If I want players to go to a specific place or do a specific thing, I make sure the environment art or other visual elements that I use (lighting, geometry, textures) communicate to the player, “go here” or “do this.”

David: As a designer, gameplay often comes first over aesthetics. However, aesthetics are a big part of what makes games so amazing and must be considered too. The key to balancing the two comes down to good collaboration between art and design. It’s the artists’ jobs to make the game look as stunning, and it’s the designers’ jobs to ensure the gameplay is fun. Through close collaboration and a little compromise, we can make sure that aesthetics look amazing but still reinforce the gameplay so everybody is happy.

Heather: The two are absolutely intertwined; better aesthetics nearly always translates to better gameplay through readability and encouraging exploration.

Nathan: Like Heather said, they are deeply connected. For me, they actually feed inspiration. I’ll think “I need a block that damages the player.” I’ll then theme the visuals to the setting. In the case of Pig Eat Ball, it’s sci-fi, so I decided for some striking, red-crystal spikes. Later on, because of the visuals of the hard, but brittle crystals, we decided to make some bombs, and certain other attacks be able to destroy the crystals. Now the player gets even more mechanical options--it’s fun!

My method being 1. Gameplay. 2. Add aesthetics. 3. Be open to new gameplay inspired from aesthetics.

What do you think is the best method for a design test? Is it documentation or a prototype? How much work do you think is needed from candidates?

Andrew: a test greybox level is nice to have, since it shows a candidate’s technical and design abilities. However, because it’s easy to evaluate these aspects, they often get more weight than hard-to-test soft skills like how well a candidate will collaborate with their teammates, or how they will compliment the culture. The technical and design skills are easier to teach than the soft skills, which ought to affect our priorities when interviewing.

David: It really depends on the type of design job. These are just my personal opinions, but I feel for all candidates, start with a small written test asking general design questions to get a feel for your experience and design sensibilities. Then, we get down to specializations for the job in question.  

The key is to have the candidate do similar work to what they would be doing daily at the job because if they can do a bit of sample work in the test, it’s a good indicator they can do the job.  As for how much work is needed?  Just enough to show you can do the job well. The tests that take weeks can be frustrating. I don’t like wasting people’s time so something small that can be done in a day or so is my favorite.

How do the pros handle lock & key progression in an open world game? Would love more tips and insight on that subject.

Nathan: In our game Pig Eat Ball, we have “critical path” required levels, and then there’s open-world exploration sections that are not required but look enticing. The required action levels teach the player certain mechanics (how to break a certain block, how to get past a certain obstacle).

The open overworlds look big, exciting, and are filled with unusual objects. But as the player makes their way through the action levels, learning how those strange objects work, and then come back to the overworlds, the player sees these gameplay objects in a new light, and how to use them and get past them.

Top 3 levels or games to play and experience -- what is level design at its prime?

Robert: The old Quake 3 GeoComp2 levels are still very dear to my heart. I’m also a big fan of island mansion levels, like The House of the Widow Moira in Thief 3 or the Addermire Institute in Dishonored 2, which have amazing floorplans that feel kind of like complete places.

Andrew: If you’re into multiplayer design, learning how to play Halo CE’s “Damnation” in competitive 2v2s will make you rethink a lot of assumptions about best practices. If you’re interested in narrative-focused or expressionistic level design, Psychonaut’s “Black Velvetopia” is a must-play. Or for mechanics-focused singleplayer level design, I love Quake’s E1M6 for its tight puzzlebox design.

Chris: GAMES

LEVELS

David:

Heather:

Seen lot of tutorials on how to approach designing levels for FPS, but is there anything specific one should look at when creating open-world/RPG levels?

Robert: In general I think open world games have more diverse demands than the typical FPS -- like, is the open world game about walking (a la Skyrim) or driving / flying (Just Cause) etc -- which make generalizing more difficult. But the one thing that comes to mind is Matt Walker’s Twitter thread on Breath of the Wild composition, about using clusters of “triangles” in the landscape. (I also hate reading Twitter threads for stuff like this, so I did my own write-up: http://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2017/10/open-world-level-design-spatial.html)

Chris: All open world designers should read Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City, where he breaks down navigation through a city into nodes, districts, landmarks, edges, and paths that let occupants know where they are and an idea of where to go next. These can exist in open world of any visual style - not just ones that are cities. You want players to be able to understand where they are at any time and provide a visual language that helps them understand what they are looking at (i.e. is this building a random house, a place where I can heal, or the entrance to a dungeon?) or where to go (tall tower viewable from distance likely = important.)

How would you design an open space that draws the players attention to landmarks in the context of environmental storytelling?

Chris: When I want to draw player attention to a specific place on a map, I try to think not only about the environment art used to make that destination distinct, but also how environment art around the destination supports it and guides the player’s eye. If I want a player to go to a tall mountain, for example, I would frame it with shorter mountains or objects that get taller as the player’s eye navigates to the mountain I want them to notice. I’d also maybe use color to emphasize the mountain against the rest of the environment (sunset behind the mountain, fire coming out of it, light emanating from it, snow on top when others have none, etc.) Think of it as a relay race: each time the player’s gaze reaches an interesting object, their eyes will run to the next more interesting object until they hit the visual “finish line.”

Heather: Players are much more likely to notice motion in an environment than things that are still. This can be achieved in a number of ways, from pumping machinery above a door to a quiet stream of fireflies floating across a field. You can use continual motion, specifically that line of motion, to draw attention to more still things in the environment.

What is your process for designing and blocking out level layouts?

Robert: Start with drawing a simple sketch of your layout. You don’t have to follow the plan exactly, but it’s good to have a rough idea of your space. After the sketch, open your level editor and add a floor plane and a human scale reference figure to help you scale your level. Then, start adding walls, etc. Rinse and repeat until you have a substantial chunk, and then test as soon as possible to check distances, clearances, etc.

Chris: I usually start by thinking of what my level is “about” gameplay-wise. Unless it’s later in a game, it’s not a good idea to make your level about every mechanic in your game, but maybe one or two. I try to introduce a mechanic first in a safe way, then give some basic challenges. Afterward I like to find a way to twist the mechanic by putting it in a new context (wall jump, but now with RISING LAVA!) or by combining it with a mechanic that was established earlier in the game (platforms that are turned on and off with switches, but now they block buckets of water that cool the lava and create a safe passage.) In terms of tools, I first try to sketch out my ideas on graph paper, then I gray box them in my game and playtest playtest playtest. I don’t add final artwork until later unless it somehow aids the player’s navigation.

David: First, I gather the requirements for the level - things like: location, time of day, weather conditions, enemies available, buddies available, weapons available, traversal mechanics available, story and character tones, how far this level in the game, etc.  Once I have that, I look for reference photos online and put them in a folder. In addition to Google Images, Pinterest can be pretty great if you search for something and add “concept art” to the search phrase. I might play similar games or watch playthrough videos on Youtube to see what others have made so I can avoid repeating it, and to spark ideas.  I’ll make a list of properly paced major beats in the level and then I’ll start building a basic blockmesh level in Maya that includes those beats.  Then it’s a big loop of iterating on the blockmesh, playing it myself, playtesting it with someone else, and making changes until satisfied or I run out of time. For the blockmesh process itself, quickly block out the entire level’s space very roughly to your game’s scale and then refine it like a sculpter would chisel away at a block of marble.  You’ll get a sense of what areas are too big and small and fix them.  Building something and playing it as soon as possible is more important than a paper layout because everything will change as soon as you play it and you’ll find the fun as you go.

Heather: I’m a very spatial thinker, so I tend to start by constructing my levels out of cubes in a test scene, iterating on that structure for a while, and then moving over and creating the same level in the proper scene.

What level design considerations and solutions do you have for the camera perspectives that your games are viewed from and the rules that govern them?

Andrew: In third person games, its best practice to design with space for the camera. If the player avatar back into a solid corner, the camera needs to have a solution, or the level designer should avoid those situations by pulling the walls back from the walkable space. There are also kinds of feedback that players perceive differently based on the camera. In first person, it is hard to have enough feedback for stuns and othercrowd control abilities that players don't mistake it for a broken input device. Similarly, ground hazards like pools of acid are hard to notice and frustrating to navigate in first person games.

Chris: Once you’ve set up your camera, make a simple test level to figure out what the limits of your ability to see players or gameplay-important things in the world through the camera. If you, for example, are using an isometric camera and can’t see players when they go behind skyscrapers or under bridges, you either need to learn to not use those things or create a script that allows players to see beyond them (fading them out or silhouetting the player when they go behind things.) Tests help you establish a set of design guidelines (that you should write into a document shared with all of your designers) for all of your levels and/or a list of needed scripts or tools to alleviate problems.

Also, think about what artistic powers certain perspectives give: 2D side-scrollers, for example, give you the power to show the player things that in-game characters don’t see. It’s like the old Hitchcock example of showing the viewer the bomb under the table in a scene where two people are having a conversation over lunch. Metroid: Fusion similarly shows the player a monster hunting Samus that she cannot logically see, creating great tension.

David: In first person, many players don’t look up much so you need to do things to get them to look up.  Angling the ground so you are facing the sky as you walk, drawing the eye upwards with a flying robot, walls with literal up arrows painted on the wall, etc.  Also, I’ve seen several playtesters never want to turn around so avoid 180 degree turns when possible.

Are there any tools for level design out there other than custom ones for each game? Is there a repository for design philosophies?

Chris: There are lots of great middleware solutions for level design (think the ProBuilder plug-in for Unity.) Editors take on whatever specialization their engine has, so if an engine is built for an FPS, the editor probably is too unless you go in and completely rewrite it. Unity, Unreal, and 2D editors like Game Maker or Construct can each make lots of different types of games so their level editing tools reflect that. For design philosophies, World of Level Design (http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/) has some good tutorials, Gamasutra (https://www.gamasutra.com/) has tons of great level design articles, and I’ve also really enjoyed the recently-started Level Design Lobby podcast (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncCrL2AVwpp7NJEG2lhG9Q) by Max Pears. Also read lots of architecture books.

David:  Look into Unity, Unreal Engine 4, Game Maker Studio, or many more.  For Unity, you can get the ProBuilder plugin (free basic version) that gives you the core functionality of Maya so you can build blockmesh levels quickly. Unreal Engine includes BSP brushes to build levels.

For notes, layouts, and sketching ideas, I like to use an iPad + Apple Pencil + Notes Plus app, and this super cool reusable whiteboard notebook called RocketBook (www.getrocketbook.com).

As for a repository, the GDC Vault and YouTube both have many great videos to watch.
In particular, Mark Brown’s Game Maker’s Toolkit video series on YouTube does a great job analyzing game concepts. World of Level Design (http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/) also has some great tutorials and a helpful community for feedback on your work.

What is a good approach for large open areas to avoid tedious parts?

Heather: There are two main ways to avoid tedium in situations like that: intrinsic tasks (things the player can do with their hands when nothing is going on, e.g. Mae’s triple-jump in Night In The Woods) and extrinsic tasks (things that the player can do to interact with the world in low-stakes moments, e.g. hunting for useful mushrooms in a field). Combining the two is a good way to avoid tedium. Additionally, dread is a great motivator for player engagement.

How is artificial intelligence being leveraged to enhance/automate level design?

Robert: By “AI”, I’m going to assume you’re referring to a general domain of procedural generation techniques, and not just trendy machine learning neural networks. A lot of games already utilize world generators to generate an initial base landscape, using software like World Machine to simulate geology and erosion. There’s also been quite a bit of academic research on this, usually to simulate players and use these bots to playtest / evolve level layouts. The problem is the player simulation part. Like, AlphaGo is an AI that’s good at playing Go, but can’t play basketball or PUBG. So from what I can tell, there’s new focus on stuff like General Video Game AI (GVG-AI) http://www.gvgai.net/ … and to catch-up on the state of PCG techniques, see the PCG Book (http://pcgbook.com/)

Chris: Procedural generation (also assuming that’s what the question is about) is a fantastic way to get a lot of level content without having to have a person design each and every one. I am a strong believer that the best procedural level generation systems still integrate some designer knowledge though. I’ve had some great conversations with researchers envisioning proc-gen systems based on architectural principles that design around human needs. I’m also a fan of systems that build levels out of human designed level “chunks” like what Derek Yu did with Spelunky (see the supplementary materials to Indie Game: The Movie.) My studio is doing something similar on a current project. This way you get lots of content, but can still have a person thinking about player needs.

Heather: I’ve done some work on this, actually! Working on a deeper layer to procedural generation (in which a set of rules is used to create content, e.g. a level in a game) where the rules to create the world are modified on the fly based on an AI’s mood and knowledge of player performance. An easy example to think about is a level which is generated as the player goes along, and, depending on how well the player’s doing, will give the player advantageous or disadvantageous positions moving forward.

What are the best ways to learn game and level design? Are there any good books or some particular games to study?

Robert: I recommend reading Francis Ching’s book Architecture: Form, Space, and Order. It’ll expose you to architectural thinking and terminology, and it also has a bunch of interesting examples from around the world.

Andrew: I recommend finding a game you enjoy that has level design tools. This way you have something to design toward while you learn the technical basics. Most level design exists to serve a game's design, so it is difficult to take tools like UE4 or Unity and design levels without that context. A game like Counter-Strike has an active level design community around it, which helps with getting feedback and finding mentors to help you improve. It’s thanks to the mentors I found in the Unreal Tournament community that I’m here writing this answer!

Chris: Play lots of games and try to put into words what you like and dislike. Keep a “design journal” so you can develop a critical language to help you talk about these things. I also very much second Robert and Andrew’s answers (that Ching book is great.) Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark’s Game Design Vocabulary is a great/quick design book with some good content specifically about level design. Pro-tip on reading design books or articles: if it has “recommended reading” sections or a bibliography, it’s basically a list of where the author learned the things they’re telling you. Look through those lists and read some of the stuff listed there. Rinse/repeat until you’ve cycled back around to the first book and/or have transformed into a Lv. 50 floating level design elemental.

David: For both game and level design, the best way to learn is to make games and levels. Mod an existing game (Skyrim, Fallout 4, Call of Duty 4, CS:GO, etc.) or grab a free engine like Unity or Unreal and watch videos and read books on how to make stuff in them. If you’re doing level design, build layouts in 2D or 3D software or engine (depending on what you want to make). You could also paper prototype your game ideas as well before you put them in a game engine. Or just make a board/card game!

Also, play games and analyze them. Pay attention to everything and speculate on how and why things were done. What is good?  What is bad?  How would you improve it?  Try to replicate the good stuff you learn in your own designs and prototypes.  A great musician doesn’t learn their instrument by songwriting - they learn by playing covers first!

Game Design Books:

Level Design Books:

Heather: It’s important to understand level design within the context of games, but it’s also important to understand it in the context of architecture. Try viewing spaces through the lens of level design. What was this place built for? What can be done in this place? Where does your eye instinctively go, and why? Where does the person who made this place “want” you to go? This exercise is great for gaining a deeper appreciation of level design, and can be done anywhere, though the best places to do it are classrooms, public parks, and theme parks. Recommended reading for this practice is The Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh.

Nathan: As David mentioned, working within a game that lets you easily mod or make levels for it, is a great way to get started quickly. I like 2D games, and an exercise you can try with Mario Maker is to pick two or three gameplay objects and then try to build a level out of them.

(Consider the most basic wall blocks as not a part of the main gameplay objects you are theming your level with. That way you have some basic building blocks to then pepper with your interesting new objects.

For example: consider the Note Block (Mario can jump high with this), the Donut Block (shakes then falls), and then the Fire Bar (spinning fireballs arranged in a line).

Think about how each object can be interacted with by the player, but also interacts with the other game objects. Take one object, add to the front of the level, then combine it with the second object in the next screen. Strain to think of as many possible ways for the two objects to build upon and combine with each other (the Note Block and Donut Block), then in the final third of the level, introduce the third gameplay item, and mix them all together (spinning fire wheels).

Have your friends play your level! Take their feedback into consideration. Try again!

Try this exercise with a new set of objects. Work to squeeeeeze out all the gameplay interactivity and combinations between just a few objects that you can.  

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Biographies

Nathan Fouts

As a programmer and a designer for the past 20 years, when something is broken, I can "just fix it myself!" While that is a luxury I don't take lightly I've met my match on this project. For the past 5 years I've been making Pig Eat Ball. It's an action-puzzle game with hundreds of levels and dozens of mechanics. Over the years I've been trying different methods for how to organize all these levels and objects, and how to get all level designers on the project able to view this giant mess. In my talk I dissect different approaches to level design, mechanics-first games with hundreds of levels, and the tools I've used over the years to organize the levels. The talk culminates with showing the "level-search tool" we created for Pig Eat Ball which allows designers to search for objects in any level and organize data to get a better overview of the game.

David Shaver

Hello there! I'm a game programmer turned designer who has worked on a bunch of different kinds of games including mobile, social, MMO and AAA. My talk, "Invisible Intuition: Player Guidance from Blockmesh to Final Level Design," is the talk that I wish someone would have given to me when I started making games ten years ago. In it, I'll be going over tips and tricks I've learned over the years that improve guiding players naturally through 3D environments without relying on external systems like waypoints. It focuses primarily on the blockmesh (greybox/blockout/etc) phase and touts the importance of applying the techniques early to get the best playtest results. There's also a few production tips as well to make sure your blockmesh becomes the awesome final level you envisioned!

Christopher Totten

I'm Christopher Totten: I have 2 degrees in architecture, make games, teach game design, and put on game events in art museums. I​'ve​ also published 2 books on level design! I hope you come see my talk, "An Architectural Approach to Level Design: Creating an Art Theory for Game Worlds (And so Can You!)", where I will tell you why and how I decided to write about level design and what I learned by doing s​o​. It's a motivational talk where I encourage other designers (hopefully you!) to share your experiences and think of level design as a field distinct from game design​.​ I​f you've ever thought about making anything (book, article, talk, video, podcast, etc.) to teach people about design, I ​can show you how to organize your thoughts, get ideas on paper, and get put them out there for others to see​. Level design is an awesome art form that ​everyone brings their own flavor to​, so let's tell the world what's great about level design together!

Robert Yang

I'm Robert Yang. I once had a promising future in the AAA industry as a commercial level designer before I decided to go to art school instead. Now I'm a video game professor at NYU Game Center, and I'm mostly known for my gay sex video games. People are often confused about that, as if I have to choose between being gay or designing levels. But the point is, why does level design and virtual architecture matter to you? We work in an industry that often dismisses politics and meaning as a "distraction" -- but then we're also desperate to claim that "games are art." Well, sorry, but you can't have art without politics... and you can't have good level design without a personal stake in what it means to build a world for others.

My talk is about a common problem I see when I teach level design to students: beginner level designers are often confused about what it means to light their level, or how to go about lighting a level. In this talk, we'll go over some common strategies for lighting a virtual space, as well as various tips and tricks for lighting in common game engines like Unity and Unreal. By the end, you should feel more comfortable with lighting your levels... or if you were already comfortable, then at least now you'll have more ways of discussing / collaborating on lighting design with others.

Blake Rebouche

Prior to creating Horizon, Guerrilla Games did not have a quest design team. To meet the their vision of a vast open world filled with narratively driven quests, studio leadership identified early in production that a new group of designers would be necessary to supplement Guerrilla's existing design expertise. Blake Rebouche, Senior Quest Designer at Guerrilla Games, was hired in 2015 to be part of that new team and to bring his experience to bear on development. Blake will explain through his own experiences and anecdotes what it was like finding a happy medium between the systems-driven content of open-world RPGs and the action focused level design of games like Guerrilla's own Killzone.

Mike Bithell

My talk is about robots. Robots talking on a train in a game called Subsurface Circular. My biggest breakthrough when working out the structure was realizing that I wanted my conversations to feel less like branching trees and more like dungeons and quests. This is a talk about how I took my level design toolbox and used it to make a two hour commuter chat feel good. And also where that approach failed terribly. Ultimately, it's a talk about how skills can be transferred to the strangest of places, how writing a good story and designing a good level are terrifyingly similar problems.

Nina Freeman & Steve Gaynor

Our session “Designing for Nonlinear Story Discovery in Tacoma” will be focusing on the process of integrating Tacoma’s level design with story throughout development, and what we learned from some of the challenges we faced along the way. We’ll tell you about all the drama (and fun) of overhauling our entire station to better support a new set of mechanics midway through development, the process of designing interactive cutscenes that branch throughout each level, the challenges of producing a level to scale with these scenes, and other experiences we learned from while working on Tacoma. We hope you'll enjoy this look behind the scenes, and receive some useful takeaways about the interplay between story, environment, and the practice of level design.

Heather Robertson

Hi! I'm Heather Robertson. I made thirty games in 2017 alone, experimenting with novel mechanics and procedural generation methods. If you're interested in taking mechanics and putting them in places they probably shouldn't be, you should come to my talk, Procedural Regeneration: Matching the World to the Player! I'll be talking about warping procedural generation back in on itself, dynamic game balance techniques, and new terrifying mechanics for horror games!

Andrew Yoder

My talk is about designing multiplayer levels to support a wide range of player motivation and skill, from professional competition to casual play. Specifically, I will be looking at the idea of "holy grail" maps, which are maps that successfully serve this wide range of audiences. I will also describe our process designing several maps for Paladins, and how these maps fit within this problem of balancing casual and competitive design.

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