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Story and presence GDC 2013

Story: Theme Setting Characters Plot Narration Story != plot Narrative The end experience in the player What is holding us back here The basic problem is that every game has a sort of box This sort of box is what the player should sort of understand Blackbox approach When you do something you don't do it for the emotional part you do it for the mechanical part So the mechanical game should fit the emotional feel you are trying to get across Neurology The brain just mold and shapes what ever is appraise Our virtue selves being inside of this virtue world. Our self is based on feedback It is possible to manipulate  When something is challenging it hinders our emotional to fully blossom  Axiom 1  Interaction is to create presence  We are playing a virtue representation of the game inside of our heads Axiom 2 Keep systems simple rely on imagination Story interaction merge = narrativ...

GDC Notes: Level Design

Level design case studies
Cut the rope

The goals in level design
Make player feel smart
Appeal both to causal and advanced player
Keep players hungry for more
-Positive reinforcement
-Self manageable difficulty
-enable planning (not trail and error)
-the solution of the level should look logical, elegant and reproducible
-Level design shouldn't uncover the weakness of the game/engine
-tutorial level shouldn't be passable without using the principle it explains
-it's ok to break those rules

For level designers the important thing is fail rate and skip rate
Player wants more

Level design postmortem

Level design is about teaching
Teaching the player of how your mechanics work
Teaching them how to become a master at your game
Consider the target audience
Level design micro and macro

Level design Marco
Add elements progressively, one at a time
Could be some be form of practice

Treat a combination of elements

A a+b b c

A b a+b c a+c b+c a+b+c

 Instructions
Localization becomes less important because of pictures
If you're trying to teach something complex to the player show the game being played
Only teach the player what they need to know right now
Split your tutorials out over the game
-give them a chance to practice them
Make sure the player has to use every skill you teach them
- reoccurring problem that they practiced before
Give players an option to unlock all the puzzles

Consider having a main game and bonus levels
Don't put nearly impossible levels in the game at all

Level design Micro
Each level should have a purpose
A purpose could be teaching some sort of element theme of the space
Aim for symmetry and balanced
Use themes for variety
Don't overwhelm the player
If you are starting with to many elements on the board be player will get confused with the information
A player should never say I don't know how I did that after solving a puzzle

Making players happy
Amplify the players internal joy
Discovery of untaught mechanics leads to player delight

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