Christopher Poole - Level Design

Dolus and the Labyrinth is an action puzzle game I created under Stranger Space. I designed every level except one, so the game is perfect for demonstrating my level design abilities. While the specifics are that of puzzle design, I applied many general level design principles while creating these levels. In each section below you can see how I applied a different aspect of level design.

Meaningful Choices

From the moment keys are introduced in level one as the way to unlock the exit door, three keys are put in the level side by side but the player only needs to activate two of them. This immediately shows the player they can choose which keys to pursue in later levels.
Key locations often test different mechanics or skill sets. The most common choice is between a key that requires puzzle solving skills and a key that requires action skills. You can read more about this in "Complex Puzzlebox and Meaningful Choices".

Background Art to Establish Progress and Draw Player Eye

The further you go into the game, the more grass and greenery appear in the levels. The story of the game is you escaping this labyrinth of a magic castle so the green shows the player they are getting closer to the outside world.
Green areas are often used to mark important places the player should be looking, like the location of keys and switches. In the level below, I also used a green area near the enterance to show the player a side path they can phase into and establish a pattern that will lead the player to all the switches of the level.

The Level as a Character in the Story

This game takes place in a magical castle that has come to life to try and stop you from stealing it's treasures. The wizard that lived here was powerful and intelligent and the castle he built is the main method through which that story is told.
To accomplish this, each level is filled with magical mechanisms that interlock and chain off each other. The walls come to life and move as part of puzzles and there are traps designed to hault intruders. As players solve the puzzles they get the feeling that they are outsmarting this wizard whose ghost is also chasing them.

It All Comes Back to Phasing

The levels need to be in service of the core mechanic of "phasing" at every turn. This allows the player to jump through one block thick walls. Multiple parts in the level require you to phase through walls to reach certain points. Other parts have very obvious shortcuts you phase through. This plays into the fantasy of phasing which is being this agile theif who sneaks through unintended paths. Naturely, in reality the paths aren't unintended they just need to look that way.
Every mechanic in the game from simple switches onward is controlled by phasing through it. I designed multiple puzzles where part of the hook is that you've got to activate a switch, but by phasing through it your character lands in a place you don't want. You can read more about this in "Simple Hook and Tutorialization".

Context

This is the second level in the game and the first real puzzle.
The first level introduced the player to their "phase" ability which lets them jump through one block thick walls. It also taught them that to open the exit to the next level, they had to activate a certain number of "key" switches by phasing through them.

Importance

Early levels must quickly hook the player and convince them that this puzzle game is unique enough to get them invested.
These levels also tutorialize the main mechanics in the least intrusive and most intuitive way possible.

Execution

The player notices they cannot move or phase through any area in A so they are forced to phase through the switch I placed in between A and B. This causes it to activate, showing the player how phasing through switches causes the marked walls to move.
Their first instinct is probably to return to A and then explore C, the area they think they just unlocked by moving the wall. However, they'll find that phasing back over the switch activates it again and returns the wall to its previous position. This is the hook to the puzzle: How do I reconcil the movement of phasing with the effects it has on the puzzle elements? Immediately, the player is not only invested in the current level, but also given a reason why the phase mechanic will provide them with interesting puzzles in the future.
The use of both the movement and puzzle interaction elements of phasing also allows me as a level designer to teach the player new mechanics by forcing them to phase over them as I did in this level and many more.

Context

This level is half way through the game with about half the mechanics present.
The player has learned all the mechanics present in this level already. This includes the "phase" ability, keys, switches, moving walls, clocks and shooters. Basically, switches activate things of the same color, moving walls move when activated, clocks activate things repeatedly, and shooters shoot bullets when activated.
This level primarily relies on the interaction where bullets from shooters can activate switches and keys. This was introduced last level but was not a major part of the design.

Importance

Despite it being a puzzle game, a key pillar of the design of each level is choice. From the first introduction of keys, the player sees that there are 3 keys accessible but they only need to activate 2 of them. This pattern continues throughout the rest of the game and into this level.
In this level in particular, the choice of which keys to activate lets the player choose between a more action oriented path and a more puzzle oriented path.
This level also highlights how shooters aren't just enemies but rather an intergral part of the puzzle. Discovering this is engaging for the player as they beging to think about a previously introduced mechanic in a new way.

Execution: Settup

The player is given immediate access to a blue switch and can see a pattern of blue shooters. Upon hitting that switch, they'll notice that the key in the center pathway could be hit by the shooter, but just before that happens another shooter activates an orange switch which moves a wall in front of it. This is the hook for the first key.
The player will then explore either up or down. If they go up they'll see another key at the end of a pathway except this time its blocked by two green walls that alternate positions so the key is always blocked. This is the hook for the second key.
Finally, the player will go down and find a yellow wall blocking a shooter from repeatedly shooting the blue switch. They'll also find the third key behind one blue and one purple wall which alternate positions to always block access to it. This is the hook for the third key.

Execution: Puzzle Route

The first thing the player will probably realize is that if you move the green wall it blocks the orange switch and thus the blue shooter can hit the middle key. This is the easiest part of the puzzle and gives them a stepping stone to make sure they feel like they're making progress.
For the puzzle specific route, the player must realize that activating the pink switch themselves will throw the two bottom walls off sync and allow them to get that key. This also requires an understanding of the whole level's geometry as I positioned the pink switch in a location where you can't simply flip it on and come back the way you came because doing so causes it to trigger again. Instead, they have to circle around the map once they hit it. Rewarding the player for this kind of map knowledge creates satisfying puzzles.

Execution: Action Route

For this route the player must realize that hitting the yellow switch moves the wall at the bottom left and allows the shooter to repeatedly activate the first blue switch, which in turn causes the blue shooters to fire repeatedly.
The satisfying part of the puzzle comes at the top where they must activate the green switch and swap the green walls right when the bullet is between them. This is a fun moment for the player because it provides a confluence of timing and understanding of the basic mechanics. In doing this they also activate the middle switch if they hadn't already.
However, to complete this path they also must get back to the door and this time all the blue shooters are constantly firing at them as well as the pink ones near the end. This is exciting for the player as they realize the chain reaction causes by all the shooters hitting switches has created a gauntlet for them to run through.

Execution: Suboptimal Route

This route involves a suboptimal combination of the two: you first get the switch at the bottom and then get the switch at the top.
This is "suboptimal" because it takes requires the two hardest parts of each route. However, this route is equally as important because this game is geared heavily towards speedrunners as the time for each level compilation is listed at the end. These and similar types of players enjoy finding optimal solutions to puzzles and so presenting the possiblity of a suboptimal solution gives them something to improve on.

Context

This is the final level. Throughout the game, the player has been chased by a ghostly mage who appears when you run out of time in a level.
As a level designer, there is one important mechanic here that I'm not sure if the player has learned by now. When the ghost chases you, he will activate things he passes over in the same way you activate things you phase through. This is never explicitly used until now and a player who is constantly three steps ahead of the ghost might have never seen it. Therefore, I must make sure to teach it this level but ideally in a way that isn't intrusive to players who already know about it.

Importance

The final level is obviously important as a climatic moment to the player's time with the game. It needs to be memorable.
This level also must not introduce any mechanic that is too jarring for the player to understand, especially when facing with a powerful enemy. At the same time, simply recycling old mechanics without a sufficent twist is the quickest way to lose player interest in this crucial time.

Execution

The main mechanic for this boss fight is keys that are too large for the player to phase through themselves. This means the only way to activate them is to have the ghost fly through them while it chases you.
At the very beginning of the level, a key is placed directly in front of the door the player and the ghost enter the level from. Seeing this large key and realizing they can't phase through it is the hook to the puzzle.
Previously, when the player has been unable to phase through smaller keys they've used shooters to activate them (as you can read about in "Complex Puzzlebox and Meaningful Choices"). There is a safe area directly on the other side of the large key and a bunch of shooters. This draws the player's eye and they'll probably end up sitting here trying to figure out how activate the first switch. When the ghost enters the player is positioned perfectly to lure the ghost into flying over the first key, teaching the player how to complete the boss fight.
The rest of the level is wide open with long corridors that allow you to gain distance from the slow moving ghost. Each of the four corner rooms are throwbacks to previously introduced game mechanics. Like every level, you only need to activate some of the keys and so you can pick which mechanics you're most comfortable with and navigate those rooms. Of course, you're being chased by the ghost the whole time (not just when you run out of time) so that serves as a sufficent twist to keep the player engaged. Thematically it also feels like a boss fight because of the player's past encounters with this entity.

Step 1: Concept

The first thing I did for each level was decide which element, or combination of elements, the puzzle would be centered around.
I had to consider what mechanics I had at my disposal at that part of the game and how long before a new mechanic was introduced. Levels that introduced mechanics needed to be easier, so levels directly before that would ramp up in difficulty.

Step 2: Google Sheets

The original goal was to have a lot more of the team designing levels than just me, so to accomplish this we used Google Sheets in a shared folder to do general layouts for levels.
I wrote up a key for everyone to follow which I've included below. The level we'll be looking at is Level 6 which I talk in detail about in "Complex Puzzlebox and Meaningful Choices".

Step 3: Tiled

Tiled is the program we used to build the geometry of the level. It allowed us to easily place tiles from our 2D sprite sheets for the walls and decorations. We then used Tiled2Unity to import the mesh and its collision.

Step 4: Unity

Once inside of Unity I placed the various interactable objects into the world as prefabs.
I wrote an editor script for Unity which allowed me to easily place waypoints for moving walls and for shooters. Switches could easily be set to a color and this color would determine which elements it activated. Maintaining proper naming conventions was also important to me as the scenes quickly filled up with all the different varied elements.
Each moving wall shape was created in Tiled and imported to Unity as a mesh just like the whole level geometry was. Movement runes were what physically caused the movement and all you needed to do to attach them was make it a child.