Notes on Level Design 1

What makes an interesting level in a video game?

For the tactics game I’m working on, each level plays out on a self-contained grid. The player’s units spawn in some areas and the enemy’s units in others, depending on the mission, and then the two sides compete to complete their respective objectives. E.g. Defending a position on a grid, defeating a certain unit on the other team, etc.

Some basic rules are that the player should have multiple viable options to complete a mission, or to assemble their team, or build an individual unit. They don’t all have to be equal, of course it’s great if they are as close as you can make it, but for a silly little singleplayer game like mine, it doesn’t really matter. Heck, if there’s an optimal way to do any of those things, then part of the game experience is figuring out what it is. That can be fun in its own right. But I think that’s a player having fun in spite of the game. Of course you can’t account for everything and a perfectly controlled environment has its own issues, but there is still a distinction between intended fun and incidental fun. When you go about building a level, since you can’t predict incidental fun, it’s only natural to try to maximize the intended.So, when I go about building a level, there are a few things that I keep in front of me to help me do a better job.

Keep maps small. It might be fun to draw big maps, but it’s more fun when each of the player’s actions does something to affect the level, rather than just moving through it. When designing levels, plan things out on a turn by turn basis, trying to get an idea of where a player will be at any given turn and of what obstacles will make the map interesting at that point.
Side objectives are a way to add optional difficulty. In a tactics-style game, pursuing an optional objective usually requires peeling off a few units to somewhere unrelated to the main objective, at least for a while. There is some some reward, but it involves fighting additionnal enemies or spreading yourself thinly, so there is a decision for the player to balance. That’s fun.
Enemy variety is more engaging than enemy number. Don’t simply increase stats or add more enemies to a group to make it harder. Instead, it should be a few carefully chosen enemies grouped together. If the player can use the same strategy against every foe, it gets repetitive. They should be positioning their own units and choosing matchups with care.
Be forgiving, a little; In some games, making a single mistake means restarting a mission, either because you now won’t be able to finish it or because you aren’t willing to suffer the consequences. In this same vein, soft counters are preferable to hard counters. Leave a little wiggle room; if you mess up early on, you can recover by doing better later.
Map design needs to give notice to players about upcoming obstacles. The player should be able to see the objectives at the start and make a plan. Any further surprises must be given with either warning in either time (e.g. enemy reinforcements in x turns) or distance (enemy reinforcements appear, but several turns away grid-wise.)
Encourage the player to have fun. The safest way to clear a map is to turtle, advance slowly, and fight enemies a few at a time with your entire force. However, this is kind of boring. There should be some other motivating reason to play faster. The player can be motivated to play more dangerously by time-limited rewards.
Try not to be arbitrary. For instance, avoid things like a hard turn limit to a level (unless narratively appropriate). Don’t have the mission simply fail after a certain amount of turns, rather have their units be crushed by overwhelming enemy reinforcements with ingame systems instead. It’s more immersive, since you’re communicating to the player on the same ruleset that they communicate with the game. It avoids situations where the player has already defeated all the enemies, and is just a turn or two away from arriving at a destination and then suddenly losing, even though there is no evidence in the game that they should lose. There were no enemies in sight.