#fff An Architectural Approach to Level Design - Chapter 6 Building Exciting Levels with Dangerous Architecture

still constructing

Humanity’s survival instincts is a key to pleasurable design:

• Archietcture: the adherence to spatial principles that humanity has historically identified as safe creates the feeling of pleasure.
• Games: utilize the emotional release after overcoming danger as a source of pleasure.

SURVIVAL INSTINCTS AND GAME COMPLEXITY

Gamespaces create dramatic tension by addressing both the survival of player avatars and historic notions of safe spaces.

Gamespaces: not only levels meant to maximize mechanics, but also spaces for creating dramatic tension and offering choice.

Modernist architects dealt with buildings as places for enacting the actions of living, with Le Corbusier famously arguing that the house was “a machine for living.” Architect Robert Venturi argued that the modernists perhaps did this a little too well. In his book, he says that while the modernists succeeded in creating simplified plans, they did so by solving only certain design problems while ignoring others. To Mies van der Rohe’s maxim “less is more,” Venturi retorted, “Less is a bore.”

The house was the machine for living, the game level should be the machine for living, dying, and creating tension by exploiting everything in between.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

1. Self-actualization: creativity, morality
2. Self-esteem: recognition, respect
3. Belonging-love: friends, family, spouse
4. Safety: security, stability, etc.
5. Physiological: food, water, sleep, etc.

“Bad Spaces”: Vulnerability as a Game Mechanic

Vulnerability as a Game Structure

Vulnerability in Individual Game Challenges

PROSPECT AND REFUGE SPATIAL DESIGN

Creating Paths with Refuges, Prospects, and Secondary Refuges

Prospects and Refuges in Architecture

Prospects and Refuges in Video Games

SHADE, SHADOW, AND AMBIGUITY

Shade

Shadow

Negative Space

LOVING AND HATING HEIGHT

SUMMARY