What are the ways of evaluating level design the stout offers, how do they apply to Legend of Zelda.
- SNES Era "Good design principles".
Singeru Miyamoto: Once said that with The Legend of Zelda he wanted to evoke the feelings associated with exploration in the player.
Level Design on Paper:
Level Flow: How to the spaces in the level fit together? Where is the player supposed to go, and will she or he know how to get there?
Intensity Ramping: Does the intensity of the experience ramp up in a satisfying way? Do monsters get more difficult as the level goes on? Does the player get a chance to learn how the enemies work and then displays her mastery to later on?
Verity: Is there sufficient variety in the gameplay? Do enemy encounters frequently repeat themselves? Are the spaces varied in interesting ways?
Training: If the design requires new skill from the player, does it teach them?
"Mikes RPG Centre"
Analysis:
The feeling associated with explorations
Level Flow - Breakdown:
Critical path - shortest path through a level without using secrets, shortcuts, cheats, the path the designer intends the player to take.
Linear Layout:
Clever tricks to create illusion of very open level design.
1. The critical path is almost entirely linear. This means that it's much easier for the player to find her way through the dungeon without getting hopelessly lost.
2. Rooms branching off the critical path makes the level feel less linear.
3. A small bit of room re-traversal at the beginning of the level makes the level feel less linear but because it only includes a small number of rooms the player probably wont get lost.
4. Giving small hidden shortcuts through the level allows the player to feel clever and allows the designer to disuse the linearity of the level.
Intensity Ramping - Breakdown:
1. The enemy encounters should usually ramp up in difficulty over the course of the level.
2. No encounter should be repeated twice. This gives a greater variety and also helps the player constantly answering new questions as she goes through your level.
Variety - Breakdown:
None of the encounters are ever repeated. The combination of level design elements and monsters are always different.
- Too much monster variety (TLOZ)
- 10 rooms in total with 6 monsters.
Training - Breakdown:
The Legend of Zelda training is written the "Black Room" example where the NPC gives you a hint.
Analysis:
- Didn't consider the Black Room a training because they were fairly useless.
- Translation issue, they were trying to guide the player to train them to important things they needed to know.
- They abandoned the black room method after this.
What I learnt:
That it is possible to achieve the feel of a non-linear level design by taking a linear path and adding short off shoots.
Ramping encounters along the critical path still allows you to have a good intensity ramp even if your level designs aren't all linear.
Miyamoto and company intended to have training in the but it was excluded because of localisation errors.
