If we start of with level design, all you need to do is look a bit more carefully at the structure of the first level in Super Mario Bros and how it teaches the player how to play the game without any complicated tutorials or pop up messages. Lets be honest with each other for a minute… tutorials suck. Yes they can be helpful and if done right and subtle enough they are great, but there is nothing worse than booting up a game that you have been waiting to play for months now but before you can actually play the campaign or online with your friends it says… HERE’S 6 10 MINUTE TUTORIALS TO TEACH ABOUT EVERY SINGLE MECHANIC AND FEATURE IN THE GAME! Okay it doesn’t really say that but you get what I mean, there will be a lengthy tutorial or multiple tutorials to teach you everything you need to know. While that is all well and good, sometimes its just not needed.
This is where Super Mario Bros comes in, designed by the amazingly talented game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. He designed the first level in such a way that it could teach even non-gamers how to play in minutes. There are so many specific parts to the level that they took into account that this post would be pages long if I went into them all, so down below is a link to an amazing YouTube video that explains them much better than I can. Take a look at the video and you’ll understand so much more and realize that every block placed in that game has a purpose.
The other side of design that I personally really enjoy is the narrative side. Now speaking as a student in a class of about 30 other game design students, I can tell you now that this opinion on narrative being important or required is split. Personally I love narrative in games, I feel like they really help to immerse the player within a game. There are quite a few games that have a narrative that I really enjoyed including:
- The Last of Us
- Skyrim
- Divinity: Original Sin (and the sequel)
- Subnautica
- Outlast
- Firewatch
- Gunpoint
- The Crooked Man
I was getting a bit carried away there and had to actually stop myself, but there are a lot more games that have strong and interesting narratives that I could continue this list for ages. But to save you just reading a list of games I enjoy i’ll just briefly explain why. For me, a good and consistent narrative can keep me intrigued. I could just go play an online FPS and just be captivated by the unlocking of new weapons or whatever but I can guarantee you I will be bored after a few rounds (probably because I’m bad at them, but not the point). Lets take Subnautica for example. The game doesn’t present you with all the narrative at the beginning, as far as you know you’ve just crashed on an alien planet and you just have to survive until help arrives. But as you explore the new world you start to piece things together, find answers to questions that present even more questions. The narrative pulls you in gradually, slowly building up your innate curiosity to find out what has happened or why something is happening. This is when you realize you’ve been playing the game for hours and its now dark outside… no? Just me? moving on then.
So, to sum up, certain parts of game design really do intrigue me and I feel like some parts are actually underappreciated sometimes. But I hope you guys have learnt something cool or fun and maybe even peaked your curiosity to play one of the games I listed above for yourself, If there are any games I didn’t mention that you think has a great narrative, please let me know! I’d love to check it out!
