Level Design Workshop

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Level Design Workshop
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Part 1 Emergence
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Reminder

• Movies are structured into scenes
• Games are structured into experiences
• The experience fan is a single line for movies,
  but branches out for games
• Not so much (Final Fantasy)
• A lot (Far Cry 2)

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Experience Fan

• We could draw different experience fans for enemy
  interaction and the environment
• Example Dead Space is a wide fan for enemies,
  but very small for the space
• Players played encounters differently
• Players traversed rooms very similarly

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Emergence

• emerge
• 1. to come forth into view or notice, as from
  concealment or obscurity a ghost emerging from
  the grave a ship emerging from the fog.
• 2. to rise or come forth from or as if from
  water or other liquid.
• 3. to come up or arise, as a question or
  difficulty.
• 4. to come into existence develop.
• 5. to rise, as from an inferior or unfortunate
  state or condition.

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Emergence

• Emergent gameplay arises unexpectantly from the
  interplay of different game systems. As an
  emergent system, the whole is greater than the
  sum of the parts.

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Systems Reminder

• We can measure the player's level of engagement
  by looking at how interconnected the game is
• Do we create meaningful play, or do we reach dead
  ends?

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Complexity

• What emerges from these interconnected game
  systems is complexity
• The whole is greater than the parts
• Designers might not even foresee every scenario
  emerging from the systems design

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Complexity

• Systems can reach a level of complexity where
  a'complexity barrier' is crossed. The systems
  that cross this barrier are complex systems and
  exhibit special behaviors.
• (Rules of Play)

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Complexity Example

• Also from Rules of Play
• In the study of planetary motion, systems with
  two planetary bodies (such as a star and a single
  planet orbiting it) can be mathematically
  articulated to precisely predict the motion of
  the two bodies in space. But once a third element
  is added to the system, gravity from each
  planetary body affects the other two, drastically
  complicating the mathematical factors determining
  their relative motion.

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In Other Words

• Small change, big difference.

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Examples

• Half-Life 2
• Quake Rocket jumping
• Doom 2 Archive creates invincible zombies

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Conclusions

• This is why it's often a bad idea to write a
  highly detailed, fully fleshed out design doc
• How do we know that all systems are going to
  work?
• How do we anticipate all interrelations in
  theory?
• Rule design each game system to have at least
  one interconnection. More might emerge during
  development.

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End