World and levels › Space and combat
Encounters: arenas, cover and lines of fire
Know first: Layout: loops, forks and dead ends
This lesson is about how a place makes a fight interesting. The same enemies can give a dull shooting gallery or a lively battle. It depends on the shape of the arena, the cover in it, where enemies come from and where the player can step back. We’ll treat a fight as a short story and look at why players love to fight from doorways and how to draw them in. Then we’ll go through cover, sightlines and the mix of enemies. In the demo you’ll add cover to an arena and see how much of its floor has a clear line of fire to the player from each spot.
Why this matters
Andrew Yoder, a level designer, describes a test from his own work. He builds an arena, an open room made for a fight, puts monsters in it and starts the player in a hallway next to it. A friend walks in, alerts the monsters, then steps back into the hallway and shoots them one by one as they crowd through the door. Instead of a fight full of dodging and choices, the arena turns into a shooting gallery: dull, safe and slow. Nothing about the monsters was wrong. The place was.
A level designer rarely makes the weapons or the enemies, but decides where the fight happens. Shape, cover, height and entrances decide whether the player’s skills get used at all.