World and levels › Level design
Verticality: height as a tool
Know first: Layout: loops, forks and dead ends, Metrics: a level built around the hero’s body
This lesson is about height as a tool of level design. Height orients the player, opens views of the way ahead, gives an advantage in a fight and decides which ways lead back. We’ll split a level into a few floors and see why going down is easier than going up. Then we’ll measure what height does to cover and look at why players so rarely look up. In the demo you’ll put a shooter on a balcony, on the same floor and below, and see how much of a target behind cover they can see.
Why this matters
The Level Design Book, a free online handbook of level design, gives an example. A quest telling the player to go north is hard to follow, since a player rarely knows where north is. A quest to climb to the top of a mountain, or to go down to the bottom of a valley, is unmistakable. Up and down are the directions everyone feels. Height changes also show progress: a long climb up a cliff or a descent into a dark dungeon is a story the player feels through their hands.
The handbook calls movement up and down vertical flow, or verticality: how it feels to climb and drop through a level. It also decides who sees whom in a fight and what the player notices at all.