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Design :: Day 009

Spaces in Level Design

When designing 3D games, a lot of how we look at spaces can trace its roots to architectural concepts. This comes as no surprise as creating a space, whether realistic or a fantasy one, is likely done to invoke certain emotional responses on top of serving a practical one. These emotional responses, being universal, are probably intrinsically tied to our collective psyche. For instance, being in nature can suggest calmness and peace while a dark and narrow corridor invokes a sense of claustrophobia. A grand concrete building can bring about a sense of grandeur but also make the person feel small and insignificant.

Positive and Negative Spaces

In my opinion, one concept that is useful in level design is positive and negative spaces. This is not a concept that is unique to architecture. Any student of art or design would have a level of understanding of it.

In general, you can think of positive space as the space taken up by the actual thing (e.g. paint, furniture, boxes, plants, rocks, etc) while negative space is the empty space that is not part of the positive space.

I think this is easier to be depicted in a painting, but in games (and architecture too I suppose), this can be interpreted slightly differently. In most games, it’s quite likely that real world logic applies – there’s collision with objects, you can’t ghost through walls, and all that basic world logic stuff. Otherwise, the game would feel like we’re playing in spectator mode and that probably won’t be fun.

How I interpret positive and negative spaces in games is through the relationship between the traversable spaces and the non-traversable spaces. We tend to linger in positive spaces and move in negative spaces. In the book 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick, this was mentioned as one of the things that the author learned in architecture school. This is what inspired my take on it.

Players tend to linger in positive spaces and move in negative spaces.

Applying in games

One way I applied this is games is to consider what I want the player to do in a space.

I did a quick level in Unreal Engine 4. I imagine it to be a section of a level in a Team-based First Person Shooter (FPS). Standard FPS mechanics applies (run, jump, shoot, crouch, etc).

The level I made

The Level

The level is divided into 6 sub-sections with different gameplay focus and 2 possible entry points into it. The intended gameplay foci are as follows:

  • Fortifications – Lots of cover with limited entry points. If a team has control over this position, it can be a good defensible position with some verticality thrown in for variety. The kind of area to host an objective in a Capture-the-Flag game.
  • Arena – Open area with no cover but flanked on all sides by possible firing positions. Good location for a skirmish or a pre-planned arena fight either between teams or with a boss character. Could also be a spawn point for a valuable weapon where team tactics and weighing risk vs rewards come into play. Or also an objective in a Capture-the-Flag game that does the opposite setup as the one above.
  • Quarry – Transitional space with some cover and good line of fire, but otherwise a bad location to stay in for too long.
  • Containers – Transitional space too; similar to the Quarry. Unlike the Quarry, it does not have any good locations with cover or line of fire. Encourages players to move quickly though it.
  • Bridge – Play area with some verticality that encourages exploration beyond what is available on a single plane. Risk vs reward as the player can get the literal high ground at the risk of being a bigger target.
  • Walkway – Another transitional space that explores a different way to handle cover and transition between spaces.
  • A and B – Potential entry and exit points into this space.

There’s a couple of mannequins in the images. They are spots that I mark out with good line of fire and usually some cover to support that.

Negative Space

As defined above, negative space is space where players prefer to move instead of linger in.

I explored this in the Quarry. Named that way due to the big stone blocks.

You Are the Quarry

Imagine a player entering this area from the foreground of the image above. The golden path that they’d take would likely be the yellow line with possible stops for cover marked by the circles on it.

The positions with the mannequins are spots with a good line of fire and convenient cover so it is likely that they may also take a small detour to engage enemies as they go on their way.

View on the ground

On the ground, the player would have a clear path forward with the cover clearly visible (highlighted in green). This allows them to plan the path that they’ll take.

The cover don’t provide a strong sense of protection not just because they’re quite exposed. Remember that just off camera to the left would be Entrance B. Someone could come in and attack them from the back. The big open area would also help to reduce the sense of protection from this area.

These are some ways negative space could be employed to encourage players to move through a space.

Positive Space

Contrasting with the Quarry, the Fortifications sub-section is made for exploring positive space. Therefore, unlike the Quarry, players would be inclined to want to linger here instead of moving through it. They’d probably take up defensive positions, find a good spot to hide, and prevent the enemy from accessing this sub-section as whoever has control of it would have a tactical advantage. Of course, this is also dependent on the game’s objectives.

Fortifications

Like in the image for the Quarry, the player would likely take the path marked by the yellow line. However, unlike the Quarry where the yellow circles are cover for resting while traversing between more exposed areas, the ones here are defensible positions where the player might take up to defend the sub-section.

To me, the logic here is that the player’s motivations are different. Unlike in the Quarry where the motivations to survive and not get shot is higher, the motivations here would be to find a spot safe enough to linger in but one that can give me a good line of fire to defend this sub-section as the player is better protected by the environment.

On the ground

Over here, the player is presented with several options for cover that gives them a good position to defend this sub-section. You might also notice that each of them vary on the risk vs reward scale.

Unlike the covers in the Quarry, the player would feel more protected with most of the level visible from the various defensible positions and they also offer better environmental protection. Somewhat relevant, you can also say that the design of this sub-section employs positive space with the roofs and walls to create space that players might want to linger in and feel more protected.

Conclusion

This is one technique that level designers can use to guide them in their level creation process. To me, understanding positive and negative spaces can help with answering some high level design questions that we might have when creating a level such as pacing, variety of gameplay, and better utilizing the available game mechanics that is better suited for the respective spaces.

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  1. Pingback: Design :: Day 11 – Herman

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