An Approach to Holistic Level Design

Hey everyone, time for a cheeky plug - since doing this talk, I've started doing my own level design youtube videos, which you can watch on my channel. If you like this talk and don't mind seeing more of my face, feel free to go take a look 👍 (The link's been kindly added to the video description: youtube.com/c/stevelee2) (P.S. Some of you may be pleased to know that I don't touch my nose so much in these videos.

2:45 The three parts: presentation, gameplay, story 5:38 An example: a level in Dishonored 2 9:04 His level 12:36 "Players don't look up" - about affordances 15:31 Weak Intentionality 16:44 Dishonored example 17:46 The 4 things players need to act with intentionality 18:56 Keys to facilitate intentionality 22:28 Intentionality affects linearity perception 24:43 Part 2: World Building 25:40 World Building Tips 34:57 Part 3: Interactive Narrative 35:26 The phrase "Show Don't Tell" and why it isn't useful for interactive narratives

This was awesome. Really chill, down-to-earth dude, and explained stuff in detail without getting too technical. Bravo 👏🏼

Really insightful! I love how he draws from other schools of design.

I think this is the best talk I've seen on level design!

Make sure to check out Steven Lee's Level Design Channel that he started about a year ago!

He said it. He said my favorite words. Observe, plan, execute.

Thanks so much for posting this!

I found this really informative. There is such a desire to ramroad the player into seeing what you want them to see, and doing exactly what you want them to, to progress through your creation. It's so easy to forget about the need to give players freedom that doesn't feel disingenious because they will insinctively feel it. Evoke don't tell is something I also really need to work on after watching this. There are other ways I can convey without actually telling. Thank you!

Amazing presentation! Inspirational!

Thank you very much. This is definitely a valuable GDC talk for me. I'll try practicing and applying this approach. (But it will take time and practice)

Thanks!

I worked with him trying to make a John Woo inspired game. Unfortunately, my skill set at the time was not good enough. Nowadays... :D Good to see him doing good things.

The guy didn't seem really comfortable on his talk, but this was 50 minutes of pure gold

I keep looking on that girl next to him, trying to be invisible.

I would love to know how narrative and mechanics evolve throughout the development process. In (your) dust district, for example, there's dust storms that serve two purposes at once. For one, they function as a new stealth mechanic that can be used creatively to proceed in the level, on the other hand it makes you experience firsthand what the district's history has amounted to and what its people are suffering from. So it sort of fulfills all three "links" shown in your presentation. Is this a chicken-and-the-egg issue or were for example the dust storms something handed to you by the writers that you then iterated upon on a mechanical level? Or the other way around?

Excellent talk. Especially the part about intentionality, as this has given me a deeper insight into what it is that I like in games. I used to use the word "Agency" to describe it, but I think this concept of intentionality(which isn't a word? But it should be!) describes it more accurately. In contrast, I profoundly disagree that all stories are about people. I mean, personally, my favorite video game stories of all time are in the Souls games, and especially Bloodborne, and in these games, the story is more about the world than the characters, and I think that this is better for video games because you can't interact with a personality, so by making the story about the world that you are exploring and trying to conquer, it enriches the gameplay itself in a way that I've never seen in any other game. Dishonored is actually the closest thing to it, though! Unlike many supposed "story-driven games", the story in a Souls game is present in every frame. As a direct result of what I'll call the "story world" approach(because the story is everywhere that you look), the Souls games are constantly transmitting story information to the player at all times (without ever taking control away from the player!) and because of that, it gives you the impression that there's no difference between story and gameplay, and that's a level of cohesion that is rarely reached. Dishonored also does a very good job of this. I think that games will never be able to compete with the Cinema when it comes to characters. Games can, however, create far better worlds than movies can, and so personally, I'd love to see more of this, and less focus on characters.

Nice talk and great job on Dust District. The Jindosh riddle is awesome, I spent some time solving it, so rewarding. Although I only did it on a no powers playthrough because I didn't want to miss out on the runes and bonecharms. Had to replay it again once you said you could find Corvo's old home though. I was just wondering how much time goes into creating such a level? What do you even start with? How far advanced is the game in terms of AI, powers design and so on when you get started on this level and how much does it change as some of the design changes?

So much value! <з

Amazing talk!