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Greyprints: Cognitive level design analysis

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The gyri of the thinker’s brain as a maze of choices in biomedical ethics – Scraperboard drawing by Bill Sanderson, 1997.

Level design is a fascinating field within game design. But level design is more than simply a craft of how to fit things together. My favourite spaces within games are places that create a story, an atmosphere, a mood – an emotion. It is worth considering then an approach of level design that considers both form and content. Moreover, in this series I want to explore level design through a psychological, emotional and end-user-centric analysis for a few of my favourite games.

 

Some of the techniques and methods I wish to include:

  • Introduce – Provide a summary of the medium-specific, socio-historic context/history for each game. Including the game’s feature itself – it’s gameplay/plot/UI etc.
  • Play – ‘Let’s Plays’ videos with textual analysis. Draw out critical points within the way the game’s levels are structured and conceived.
  • Spatial Mappings – Drawing out level maps. Examining the spatial relationship of the levels and what this implies, when looked at when the game’s environments are reverse-engineered at critiqued from a design POV, utilising a variety of methods.
  • Cognitive Mappings – Create emotional progression trees of a a simulated end-user experience and add this as an overlay to the spatial level maps.
  • Aesthetic – How does the look/sound and overall mise en scène of the environments serve to create the enviromental experience.
  • Setting & World Design – What does the level design teach us about the world? What does the setting tell us about the game itself?
  • Critique –  Write articles that employ a mixture of cognitive game design frameworks as well as other level design specific models to determine from a design perspective what works/doesn’t work or is otherwise curious, notable and interesting.

 

Some of the conceptual/theoretical research for this project can be found here:

Cognitive Game Design

  • Designing Games – Tynan Sylvester
  • Emotion Engineering: A Scientific Approach For Understanding Game Appeal
  • Journey and the art of emotional game design
  • Emotional Design for Games: The Roles of Emotion and Perception in Game Design Process
  • How Games Move Us Emotion by Design By Katherine Isbister
  • Emotion, manipulation and the future of game design
  • Emotional Game Design
  • EMOTIONAL DESIGN FOR GAMES : THE ROLES OF EMOTION AND PERCEPTION IN GAME DESIGN PROCESS
  • Player’s Emotions
  • https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/166972/cognitive_flow_the_psycholgy_of_.php?print=1
  • https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00028/full
  • https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/media-pr/using-psychology-in-game-design/
  • https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/15/video-game-design-psychology
  • https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012186/The-Psychology-of-Game-Design
  • https://productpsychology.com/understanding-the-psychology-behind-game-design/
  • https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338775073_THE_PSYCHOLOGICAL_IMPACT_OF_GAMES_DESIGN

Level Design

  • An Architectural Approach to Level Design
  • Preproduction Blueprint: How to Plan Game Environments and Level Designs
  • Level Design Concept, Theory, and Practice
  • Boss Keys
  • Level Design Lobby
  • Level With Me

Game Design

  • The Art of Game Design

 

Some of the games I wish to analyse are:

  • Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey/Abe’s Exodus
  • Deus Ex
  • Vampire the Masquerade 
  • Majora’s Mask
  • Kings Quest VII
  • Loom
  • Banjo Kazooie
  • Conkers Bad Fur Day
  • Fabled Lands
  • The Bizarre Adventures of Woodruff and the Schnibble
  • Fable – Anniversary 
  • Shadow of the Colossus
  • LISA – The painful RPG
  • Planescape Torment
  • Final Fantasy IX
  • Galerians
  • The Last Express
  • Legend of Mana
  • Chrono Trigger
  • Chrono Cross

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