作者：Martin Nerurkar

本文主要谈论优秀关卡设计的目标和要求。这源自我的建筑学背景及之前有关关卡设计主题的系列讲座，特别是那些面向培训建筑师的讲座。所以如果你之前听过该讲座，或许会对文章内容感到熟悉。

roman architect Vitruvius from getgoinggirl.com

在切入关卡设计话题之前，先让我们从建筑学入手。几千年前，罗马建筑师维特鲁威提出“建筑3大特性”：

* 稳定性。建筑要能够稳固矗立。

* 可用性。建筑空间要满足预期用途。

* 美观性。建筑外观要满足美学要求。

3qualities Arch from gamasutra.com

这很有道理，对吧？坦白讲，这样分解归纳具有主观性，赞同和反对声并存，但我很支持这样的归纳（游戏邦注：其中新内容都是基于前一内容之上）。若你的建筑无法安全伫立，那么厨房布置是否合理也就无关紧要。若大门设计过小，那么建筑再美也无济于事，因为建筑本身就是个失败之作。

现在我要将此特性移植至游戏关卡设计：

* 稳定性。等级不应存有任何技术或性能问题。

* 可用性。游戏空间能够充分利用游戏机制。

* 美观性。背景能够创造特定氛围，提供情景支持。

3qualities Levels from gamasutra.com

下面我将会逐一陈述上述3方面特性，同时阐述其成为游戏关卡设计原则的原因所在。

稳定性

如上所述，这是个基本范畴。这也是游戏设计的最低要求。若等级无法满足该范畴，就会因技术问题无法正常运作。这里涉及的两大主要方面是稳定性和性能。

我所说的稳定性是指关卡设计不会破坏游戏。如今设计游戏关卡十分困难，因为很多引擎都十分强大。但有了关卡之后，我们就能够引用不存在或相似文件。等级脚本会产生新偏差。当然若这种冲击极为罕见，对游戏的运作影响就不大。但这仍旧是关卡“创建”中的一个瑕疵。唯有操作利落，多加留心方能避免该问题。问题或许还是会悄然产生，但这就是质量管理的监督范畴。

性能是另一方面，这意味着关卡能够有效运作。随着更高端系统的产生，这不再成为问题，但这只是意味着关卡不再受阻，帧速率不再下降。少量该问题是能够接受的，但如果多人关卡因包含6位玩家、2次爆炸就放缓至“乌龟速度”，那么你就大错特错。这通常和环境画面不符，因为包含细节越多，性能下降就越大。最终还是要寻找二者的平衡点。当然这包含很多聪明技巧和可行优化策略（游戏邦注：从细节刷笔到可视化服务器和远程选择，所有能够获得成功的元素）。

可用性

关卡设计主要涉及实际体验空间设计。也就是定义玩家活动空间。我之前曾在《等级设计亦是游戏设计》中谈到数字体验空间的定义。但由于其中存在众多分歧，表述似乎不尽如人意。

可用性定义了玩家活动空间。它引导活动流程，同时通过和游戏设计展开密切互动提供预期体验（游戏邦注：并不一定是有趣的活动）。值得注意的是，正是这些空间的局限性让游戏能够运作，若空间改变，其可能体验也会发生相应改变。

可用性产生的内容细节实在是非常之多，我无法一一陈述。这是个同Noah Falstein及其伙伴展开的400 Project项目类似的方案，但超出文章内容范围，特别是因为这些很大程度依赖于游戏类型和游戏设计。

该设计目标多种多样，从控制玩家活动空间到为玩家提供障碍和挑战。

美观性

词语本意及其在建筑学的含义都是指美观。也就是说建筑应该带来视觉享受。这很容易理解，建筑通常都是长久伫立，丑陋的建筑会让某些人认为是视觉恐怖主义。当然维特鲁威当时还没有谈到主题公园和其他印象派建筑。“丑陋”有时也是目标之一。

对于关卡设计来说亦是如此。它们无需美观，相反，它的目标是创造一种意境，一种氛围。所以按照这个原则来看，所有有关意境和视觉效果创造的内容都是属于该范畴。

坦白说，这和可用性有重复的地方，因为外观影响可用性。例如，若设计师在空间中添加昏暗灯具，其就要确保空间的能见度。也就是说，为方便分类，将所有不影响空间的元素直接放入该范畴是保险之策。

除意境和氛围之外，关卡视听设计内容还包括其他内容。重要（游戏邦注：也是常常容易忽视的方面）的是它们能够创造关联性。熟悉画面能够使玩家产生某种预期，提供参照标准。若山上有座城堡，那么肯定会有守卫以及值得看守的物品。认为其中住有统治人物也是合情合理。若城堡设有大门，就表示大门可供开启。所有这些能够有效帮助玩家获悉他们能够体验什么。

此外，视听元素能够陈述某个故事。不论是更大意义的兜售布景，还是更小范围的叙述小故事。空间故事叙述是个趣味横生的主题。

游戏邦注：原文发布于2009年9月13日，文章叙述以当时为背景。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Three Qualities of Level Design

by Martin Nerurkar

In this post I’ll talk a bit about the goals and requirements of good level design. This thing has grown out of my architecture degree and the numerous lectures I held on the subject of level design – especially those with architects-in-training as their audience. So if you’ve sat in on one of them, this will propably be familiar.

So before I get into level design, I’ll first have to talk a bit about architecture. Thousands of years ago, the roman architect Vitruvius identified what he called the three “qualities of architecture”. They are as follows:

* Firmitas, stability. The building stands stable on it’s own

* Utilitas, usability. The spaces created by the building are suited for their intended use

* Venustas, beauty. This building has a beautiful aesthetic

They do make sense, right? Admittedly categorizing things is often arbitrary and can be argued for or against but I kinda liked that setup, where each layer is building on one another. If your building isn’t standing safely, it doesn’t matter much if your kitches is perfectly laid out. And if your doors are too small for people to get in properly, then it doesn’t help that the aesthetics are wonderful – the building itself is still a failure.

Now I tried transporting this divide over to level design, and this is what I got:

* Firmitas, stability. The level runs well without any technical or performance issues

* Utilitas, usability. The space does a good job at leveraging the game mechanics

* Venustas, beauty. The environment creates an atmosphere and provides affordances.

I’ll elaborate a bit on these three qualities and how I think they relate to level design as a discipline:

Firmitas

As mentioned before, this is a pretty basic category. A sort of minimum requirement if you will. If a level fails to fulfill it, it ceases to be properly playable due to technical issues. The two main areas here are stability and performance.

Stability as I see it refers to the level not crashing and breaking the game. Nowadays it’s usually quite hard to do that with a level itself since most engines are quite robust. It could be doable though with the level referencing a file that doesn’t exist or something similar. Also if there’s some sort of level script then that might be another source of errors. Of course if such a crash is very very rare it might not affect playability too much because it’s really hard to cause it. Still it’s a flaw in the “foundation” of the level. This can be avoided by working cleanly and paying a lot of attention. It might still creep in but that’s what the QA is for…

Performance is the other side and means that the level is running properly. Again this has become a bit less of an issue with higher end systems but it basically just means that your level doesn’t suffer from stuttering and frame-rate drops. In small amounts this can still be bearable but if your multiplayer level slows down to a crawl because there’s 6 players and 2 explosions, then you’ve done something wrong. This is often at odds with the graphics of a environment – the more detail you have the more your performance will drop. In the end it comes down to a balance between the two. And of course there’s a lot of clever tricks and thught out optimization involved. Everything from detail brushes to visportals and distance fog/culling. Whatever will do the trick.

Utilitas

This aspect of level design deals with the design of the actual play space. That is to say it defines the space within the player moves. I’ve talked (or at least tried to) about my definition of the digital play space some in my last (somewhat controversial) rant about how level design is game design. I’m afraid I failed somewhat since there were a lot of misunderstandings there – but I’ll try again sometime, maybe visually. Alright, slightly off course here, Let’s get back on track.

Utilitas defines the boundaries within which the player(s) move(s). It directs the flow of play and it’s job is to iteract closely with the game design to provide the intended experience (which doesn’t neccessarily have to be “fun”). It’s worth to note that these spatial constraints are what make the game possible and if they are changed, the possible experience is too.

The details of what Utilitas actually entails are too many to mention. This surely would be a great project quite similar to the 400 Project from Noah Falstein and co. but goes beyond the scope of this article, especially as these are highly dependent on the genre and game design involved.

These goals can range from anywhere between controlling the flow of players within the space to providing obstacles and challenges for the player to overcome.

Venustas

The words original meaning and the quality as it relates to architecture refers to beauty. That is to say that buildings are supposed to be pleasant to look at. This makes a lot of sense if you consider the fact that buildings are quite permanent construct and having a disgusting building in the middle of town could be considered visual terrorism for some sensible eyes. Of course back then Vitruv didn’t know or write about theme parks and other types of experiential architecture. There being “ugly” can sometimes be goal.

And the same’s true for levels. They don’t need to be beautiful, instead their goal is to evoke a mood, an atmosphere. So following that tenet, everything that relates to the creation of mood and visual references is part of this category.

Admittedly there’s some overlap with Utilitas since the visuals affect usability. For example when putting moody lighting in a scene the designer needs to take care that the important areas are still visible. Or when trying to use visuals to steer the player. That said, for the sake of easier categorization it’s safe to put everything that doesn’t affect the space (textures, light etc.) directly into this category.

Besides mood and atmosphere, there’s a few other jobs that the audiovisuals of a level can do. A quite important (and easily overooked) one is that they can create associations. Familiar visuals can cause certaun expectations in the player and they establish a frame of reference. If there’s a castle on a hill, odds are that there are going to be guards and that there’s something worth guarding there. Expecting some sort of ruling body there wouldn’t be too far fetched either. Of if there’s a door it might suggest that it can be opened. All of this are helpful cues to help the player figure out what he can do.

Additionally the audiovisual elements can help tell a story. Both in the larger sense of selling the setting (castles for traditional fantasy, spaceports for science fiction) and in smaller instances of telling small stories within the world. The entire topic of spatial storytelling is actually a fascinating one that I plan to write another article on in the near future.

So that’s it. That’s my rundown of the three Qualities. Now what do you guys think? Is that a sensible system to categorize and analyze by? （Source：gamasutra）