作者：MLD Nejadazar

这是我第一次为关卡设计师编写技巧，因为我仍是这个领域的新人。但我认为在致力于像横向卷轴平台游戏以及行动冒险游戏等多个项目5年后，现在是时候与你们分享有关这些游戏的某些内容了。

当我开始致力于《暗影之刃》时，我知道我们想要创造出某些休闲的内容但同时还想呈现早前游戏的感觉，这真的有点冒险，因为我们并不敢保证这一代的游戏玩家是否对任天堂游戏或Genesis游戏还有感觉。

一开始《暗影之刃》是以带有猛击控制机制的潜行平台游戏为基础，但在重新考虑并重新设计某些机制后，它最终成为了带有流畅战斗（使其显得更加独特）的快节奏平台游戏。我们为多种关卡设计创建了原型，并最终决定选择较短的街机风格样式的关卡。

这些都是我在这5年里，并且主要是在创造《暗影之刃》的过程中所吸取的经验教训：

避免呈现糟糕的教程：教程是最难的一部分，所有人都知道它！所以你必须确保教程足够简单，简短，但却仍具有一定挑战性。尝试着在前3或4秒内用一些基本的移动和挑战去训练玩家。无聊，缓慢且充满文本的教程也会遭遇失败。

Tutorial(from abduzeedo)

明显的主路径：始终尝试着去呈现主路径，这些关卡应该是非常清晰的。将一些较酷且明朗的内容置于该路径上，从而让玩家能够更好地遵循它。这能够激励玩家去把握所有的这些内容并遵循主要内容。货币或魔法球等等便是很好的例子。

探索和秘密：探索和秘密始终是备受推荐的元素，特别是当你想要使用深入的关卡去吸引硬核玩家的注意时。添加这些内容能够提供给玩家重玩关卡的价值。你还必须记住有些玩家总是着眼于收集三颗星星。

让他们按照自己的方式游戏：为了满足硬核玩家以及那些精通你的游戏的玩家，你的关卡就应该支持快速运行，你应该在一开始就想到这点，如此你便不会迫使他们如何游戏或者缓慢地游戏。让玩家们能够轻松地做任何想做的事。

关卡长度：关卡的长度很重要。通常情况下较短的关卡比较好，因为这比较没有风险。如果玩家开始感到无聊，那么下一个关卡就应该呈献给他们一些新挑战，新机制和新氛围。

处理新机制：尝试着在任何你觉得合适的时候引进新的关卡机制，不要固执地认为必须在新章节或特殊的时候才能呈现它们。在引进新机制的同时伴随着一些简单的挑战，并混合其它可行的机制，在你认为对的时候向玩家呈现这一新机制。千万记得不要滥用它。

有效的检查点：如果你认为玩家通过的某些艰难的挑战或关卡开始变得较长，那就设置一个检查点。因为要求回到那些挑战中对于休闲玩家来说有点不公平，他们可能会在尝试2,3次后放弃游戏。你必须记得你所瞄准的是休闲玩家。

冷却时间：在经历一次挑战后提供适当的冷却时间非常合理，如果你能够将其与奖励结合在一起就更棒了。这并不意味着在任何挑战中设置奖励，你不应该滥用它。

一步一步来：关卡序列是最难搞的，因为它们与难度曲线具有紧密的关系，你应该基于一些反馈结果以及关卡中的挑战做出选择。千万不要来硬的。任何小小的错误都有可能造成巨大的损失！

让他们知道你做了什么：在最后向玩家呈现重要的信息，尝试着说服他们回到游戏中并再次游戏。生动的视觉效果能够缓解这一问题。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Making Hardcore levels for Casual

by MLD Nejadazar

This is my first time to write some tips for level designers cause I’m still so Newbie in it! BUT I assume after working 5 years on several projects like Side-scroll Platformers and Action-Adventures, I think it’s a suitable time to share some of them.

When we started to work on Shadow Blade, we knew we wanted to make something casual but with old school feel, it was kinda risky cause we were not sure the current generation of gamers had any feelings for NES or Genesis games.

At first Shadow Blade was based on sneaking and stealth platforming with swiping controls, but after reconsidering and redesigning some of the mechanics, it came out to be fast-paced platforming with some fluent combat to makes it quite unique. We prototyped many styles of level design and at the end we decided that short – arcade styles levels were something that we were looking for.

These are my experiences during these five years and mostly on Shadow Blade:

Avoid the sucks Tutorial! Tutorials are one the toughest parts and everyone knows it! So keep it simple, short and a bit challenging. Try to train him with basic movements and challenges in the first 3 or 4 minutes. Boring, slow and full of texts tutorials are FAIL! Don’t even think about them!

Visibility of the main path: Always try to show the main path, the levels should be completely visible and neat. Put something cool and bright in the path that players can follow it. It can motivate the player to grab all of them and follow the lead. Coins, orbs or similar stuff are good examples.

Explorations and Secrets: Exploration and secrets are always good and recommended, especially when you want to give depth in levels to attract hardcore players. Plus it can give replay value to that level. Keep it in mind that some players are always looking to collect three stars.

Let them play with their own style: For satisfying hardcore players and those who mastered your game, the levels should support speed-runs, you should think about it from the first moment, so don’t try to force them how to play or play slow. Make them relax to do whatever they wanted.

Level length: Length of the level is so much important. Usually short levels are much better, because they are not risky. If the player is starting to get bored, next level will refresh him with new challenges, mechanics and atmosphere.

Dealing with new mechanics: Try to introduce new level mechanics whenever you think it’s the right time, don’t insist to show them exactly on new chapters or on specific time. Introduce it with some simple challenge, Try to master him step by step, mix it with the other available mechanics and when you realize it’s the time, show him a new one. And remember to not spoil it!

Lovely Checkpoints: If you think the player passed some tough challenges or level is starting to get long, put a checkpoint. Because coming back from all those challenges is kinda unfair for casuals and be sure after two or three tries they will drop the game. Remember that you are aiming for the casual audience.

Cooldown time: A small cool-down after a challenge is always nice, if you can mix it with a reward, it would be much nicer. It doesn’t mean to put reward on every challenge, don’t spoil it either.

Step by Step: The level sequences are one of the toughest tasks because they have a strong relationship with difficulty curves, try to select them with the result of feedback and challenges inside of the levels. Try not to be a torturer! Small mistake will cost a lot here!

Let them know what they’ve got: Show them the important stats at the end, try to convince them to go back and play it again. Juicy visuals can boost this issue.

At the end I would like to thank you for reading a rookie level designer’s thoughts and it would be awesome to hear about your opinions and comments about my experiences.(source:gamasutra)