World and levels › Level design
Metrics: a level built around the hero’s body
Know first: World scale: meters, minutes and density
A level is built around its hero: how tall and wide the hero is, how fast they run, how high and how far they jump. Level designers call these numbers metrics. Some are facts you measure, others are rules you choose. We’ll measure a hero on a test map, leave a margin in a jump, and look at the sizes real games give to hallways, doors, stairs and cover. In the demo you’ll change a jump and see which gaps and ledges stop working.
Why this matters
A gap 20 cm wider than the jump turns a level into a wall. The player tries again and again and decides the game is broken. A doorway a little narrower than the hero stops them as surely as a locked door. A crate meant as cover hides only half of the body. Each of these mistakes is tiny on the map, and each is found only when somebody plays there.
Designers avoid them with numbers. Before building, they measure what the hero can do. Then they build every gap, ledge and doorway from those numbers, the metrics. Devin Kelly-Sneed, who led player movement on Psychonauts 2, writes that his team settled the jump metrics early in the project. Written down, they let level designers “build content that will fit the desired platforming experience”.