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Empty space and item placement.


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#1 ChrisHunter64

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Posted 16 November 2019 - 10:11 PM

So I've been wondering for a bit about a specific aspect of world and dungeon design that I havent been able to decide in myself and was wondering if some of you who has finished making a single or multiple quests have an opinion on this.
The question being, exactly what is the normal radius of filler screens before there should be some hidden secret or item. Of course its all subjective to peoples tastes like how big of a world you are trying to make and what genre of game it is.
Pretty sure i shouldnt just throw rewards at people like heart pieces because that lessens the value of finding them but after awhile it gets hard to think of items to put in your world that will make people appreciate finding them. As well as key and item placement in dungeons, like going down a section finding that sections key, then opening the door to another section that has the item. I guess what kind of ways can you make that formula not feel so linear while still being that classic zelda esque game everyone loves?

Edited by ChrisHunter64, 16 November 2019 - 10:29 PM.


#2 NoeL

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Posted 17 November 2019 - 12:56 AM

For me it's not so much items and empty space, but modeling "flow", i.e. the emotional arousal/investment/engagement of the player over time. Finding that sweet spot between having so many high-intensity moments (discovering secrets, fighting bosses, etc.) it's exhausting/overloading and they lose impact, and so long between these moments the player gets bored. And this flow model can be dynamic too: rather than having a set interval between gameplay "peaks" it can be variable, for example early in the game the peaks might be closer together so you can build engagement without as much risk of fatigue, and then spread them out once the player is invested and just needs a bit of a break. In the context of your question, this means making secret/key items more frequent/closer together in the early game then spacing them out later (and you'd probably want to build back up to more of a crescendo in the late game too to make it more exciting). You can take these game-wide flow models and shrink them for each dungeon too, having mini flow cycles within the larger game-wide model - i.e. having more frequent item pickups in the early and late stages of each dungeon as well as the quest as a whole. You can also change the flow in response to the player themselves too, for example having scaling difficulty depending on how well the player is doing (this would be a bit tricky to pull off in ZC though). Note that these high-intensity "peaks" aren't limited to finding cool items, but any emotionally arousing situation (fighting a boss, a dramatic shift in level layout, cool new mechanic, etc.).

 

So yeah. A bit of a broader response to your question, but it's important to understand what the "radius of filler" means in terms of game mechanics so that you can then design for it.


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#3 ChrisHunter64

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Posted 17 November 2019 - 03:29 PM

Oh i get it. So i need to understand what the player gets out of playing the game at different points of progression. Rewarding them to get them into it but then have them work twords further progression.
Are there specific techniques to do those things?

#4 NoeL

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Posted 17 November 2019 - 08:52 PM

Not so much "have them work", but have more down time between exciting encounters/rewards. That down time should still be fun though and not frustrating or boring (it's the core of your gameplay loop afterall). So the "filler" rooms between rewards still need to be fun and interesting - you can't just have empty corridors or brutal difficulty (unless you have a good reason to). There's unfortunately no real "there should be n rooms between items" answer I can give you because there are too many factors to consider.

 

As for specific techniques: research and or experiment. :P There've been several studies around player retention trying to find the sweet spot so you could check out those and design your game around those results (Extra Credits probably has some vids on flow too), or you can observe people playtesting your quest and track their engagement over time - figure out which areas feel too easy or demanding. You can also monitor your own engagement: play other quests/Zelda-likes and keep track of the intervals (in time and space (i.e. screens)) between peak moments of interest. If you find yourself getting bored or frustrated, record why (too long without a reward? Not long enough? Or maybe it's another problem with the design).

 

To go back to your original problem with making rewards interesting, outside of observing players directly you just need to think like a player. "What would the player need, want, or enjoy at this moment?" Twilight Princess did a pretty bad job here, with too many chests full of rupees when you'd often have a full wallet because there was little incentive to spend at the rate you were hoarding. So rather than a chest of rupees being rewarding it was just more trash you don't want/need - worse still you had to put the rupees BACK if you didn't have room in your wallet, leaving chest markers all over your map with no indication that you've opened them already. Rewards don't necessarily need to be items either - you could reward the player with fun (a mini game or funny moment/easter egg), or lore, or helpful information, or a shortcut - just to name a few examples.

 

And since you asked for alternate approaches to level design, check out the Boss Keys series by Mark Brown on Youtube. He does a pretty good surface-level analysis of the different kinds of Zelda dungeons that've popped up over the years (which he categorises into "follow the path", "find the path" and "puzzle-box" dungeons - maybe more, been a while since I watched them). At the very least that'll give you some ideas for the kind of dungeon you want to be making (but I don't think he comments much on flow so won't be that helpful figuring out your "radii of filler").

 

EDIT: Removed duplicate info.


Edited by NoeL, 18 November 2019 - 06:44 PM.

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#5 ChrisHunter64

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 02:08 PM

Thank you for all of your advice i appreciate it. Im definately gonna check out boss keys it sounds like exactly the thing i was looking for when figuring out the concept of dungeon design as well as possibly integrating ideas into the overworld to make that sweet spot you talked about. I hope i can put this into practice best i can.

#6 ChrisHunter64

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 05:24 PM

Oh my gosh how have i not seen these before. This type of thinking is what i fanboy over when playing these games.
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#7 NoeL

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 06:45 PM

Haha, you're welcome. Hope the vids prove useful.


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#8 ChrisHunter64

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Posted 18 November 2019 - 11:01 PM

Oh definately. I took a quick look at my first dungeon afterwards and seen all of the things i could implament and move around to make the flow better. So again much obliged. How in the world have i not found these videos along time ago considering my youtube is full of zelda stuff


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