Week 5 - Level Design Research

Unit 8

Luigi's Mansion Level Analysis

Luigi's Mansion is a horror game made by Nintendo that is based in the Mario universe. The game has Luigi, who is exploring a mansion looking for his missing brother, capturing ghosts by using a vacuum and a flashlight. The game is designed for a younger audience, this shows within the gameplay and level design.

The game is split up into lots of rooms, each with varying contense. The player begins by entering the foyer, this room has multiple exits that the player can use. This makes the player feel like they have a choice in where they go, but actually most of the rooms are locked and require a key to open. Keys are acquired form beating rooms or interacting with the environment. This controls the progression and serves as a way of rewarding the player for progressing and stops the player from getting bored. As the player progresses they encounter harder enemies and more difficult puzzles. This keeps the player on their toes. There are also bosses and unique enemies that require special ways to defeat which will change up the gameplay and keep it interesting. The game also has a room that fills with pictures of all the bosses you have beat, which allows the player to keep track of their progress.

The actual design of the levels are of an old Victorian mansion. This is important as the location is in he title. The rooms use a lighting system that seems dynamic, so if there is no lights on then the room will be dark. This also lets the player know if there are ghosts in the room, as they will only spawn in rooms with no light. If the player defeats all the ghosts in a room the lights will turn on and the player can proceed, they may also be rewarded with something.

Legend of Zelda

The Legend of Zelda is an action/adventure game created by Nintendo. The game has you control the main protagonist in an adventure to save a princess from a demon king, by collecting various items and weapons. The game was designed to be family friendly as gaming back then was seen as more of a child's entertainment.


The game is split up into sections that the game will load as the player walks off of one. This means that the game only needs to load one frame at a time, thus helping conserve memory consumption. This was done likely due to the low processing power of the consoles at the time, so this was chosen to accommodate this. The use of frames meant that the world can be split into a grid, which not only allows someone to easily identify a location on the map, but also means that level design can also be done in a grid format.


As this is an open world game the player is allowed to roam what is known as the 'overworld' a level that has the entrances to other levels. This allows the player to access new levels without breaking the flow of gameplay with menus. This also serves to give the player the feeling of choice as the player can go where they want, this can be a little overwhelming to some players but can also make the game more enjoyable.


To access other levels the player will need to find the entrance on the overworld, this can be as enjoyable as a level in a well designed overworld. Once the player finds an entrance they can touch it to get taken to one of the games dungeons which the player will get rewarded for completing. Some dungeons require items from other dungeons, this gives the player a sense of progress when they are able to access a part of the game that they couldn't previously. This will also stop players accessing content that the developer does not want them to access until a certain point, after all a game will be boring if you could go straight to the final boss...


The game uses a 8Bit graphic style, this was due to the limited technology available. This basic style meant that things did not need to be realistic or believable, they only needed to represent. Simple graphics go well with the children's fantasy setting of the game as children don't want a game that's too complicated, and the art style gives the impression of simplicity.

My Thoughts

From this I now know that I will need to plan out not only the layout of the level, but things like enemy locations, difficulty and rewards to keep the player entertained. I will need to think about whether I want the player to have choice in where to go, or if it should be a linier experience. The appearance of the levels should fit the theme of the level, so no future items in a past setting. The size of the levels should also be taken into account. Small levels do not work well with fast paced action games, and large levels are bad for slow paced games. I also need to make sure that the levels have enough in them, as a large empty space is not as enjoyable as a small well populated one. I also need to think about whether I want to have an overworld in my game, or if the gameplay would better be better suited by having just one big open world.