How to Design Great Metroidvania Levels | Game Design

hi there i'm goodgus and for the last year or so i've been working on a bee themed dos style metroidvania dewdrop dynasty for those who've been following along with the project we'll notice that i haven't posted an update in quite some time between doing a kickstarter and managing youtube there are many reasons why but the quick answer is that i was stumped with one of the core features for the game and that was level design now a world is a crucial part of any game but especially in a metroidvania where the main goal is exploration you can have all the dialogue and mechanics you want if you don't have a good level or world that you can explore can you really call it a metroidvania both mega man and super metroid both have shooting bosses and upgrades but the difference between these two games is that mega man is a continuous linear world while metroid is one where you have to explore and sometimes backtrack in order to go forwards now as you can imagine this could be very daunting when it comes to making your own metroidvania and this is why i personally felt stuck for a couple months you would think that having all your basic systems down like menus mini maps character movement and abilities combat that you wouldn't have much left to work on for your game but it's actually the opposite really all i've done so far with my game is essentially create mario maker i have all the components necessary in order to make a fun playable game and now it's just figuring out how i can put them all together to make it a full complete experience but i think sometimes as a developer we forget that level design is really 80 of the work that goes into a game so after much trial and error i finally developed a system to help me solve my level design problem and by develop i mean just stealing what level designers have been doing for years step number one is to draft out your map and i'm not just talking about one area or a couple of rooms i'm talking about your whole entire world in order for you to properly flush out your game and know where your player is going you need to know what the entirety of your world is going to look like for example in hollow knight you have the city of tears which is a very rainy moody empty location that is actually located underneath the lake which explains why it's raining or how about norfair and super metroid where you go deep deep down into the planet and then you're surrounded by lava the main thing is to create a location that feels unique for the pits location dude drop dynasty at first it just started out to be like a soily dirt location there wasn't anything too special until i rebranded it as a cheese mine which is super weird but it's way more memorable so step number one is just to think about the locations you want in the game where are they located at and how are they actually unique now step number two is to develop your game's timeline and no i'm not talking about lore i'm actually talking about the keys the items and bosses you have to face in order to progress the game a good example of this is cave story when you're trying to get into arthur's locked house in mimika village now eventually after doing some exploration you'll end up going to a reservoir and find that the key is actually in the water what i love about this example so much is collecting a key in a video game and unlocking a door is nothing new but the way that they use it to actually build out the world and have you explore and get comfortable with the village it makes you get comfortable with the people and the locations so that when stuff does happen later on that you do have that emotional connection so for step two whether you want to sketch it out or write it down make sure you make a list of what you want to do in the game even if it's something as simple as getting a key before you fight the boss how can you make it clever but just start with a list so you have a blueprint of what you need to do number three is develop your character's abilities and this part should probably be worked in with the second tip because you want to create your abilities while you're developing your timeline because your ability could be the key to unlocking something else like in majora's mask when you can't jump across these pits unless you have the deku ability but even beyond abilities you want to know how high your character can jump and how far they can go and that's exactly what they did in majora's mask they created link's movement first so all the spaces and platforming would feel comfortable with link running around it so number three is to play around with that movement play around with his abilities and it's okay if you add some later on but it's good to have a base for you to start with number four is map out each room now at this point you should have a pretty good idea of what items you want what sort of locations you want to go to and what needs to be done in order for you to complete the game so the idea is to take the locations you came up with and to basically create mini maps of each area for me i know that one of the last locations in the game is going to be a giant tree now if you're climbing up a tree it would make more sense if you had a bunch of tall narrow rooms so here's where i would block in kind of what the rooms would look like and remember at this point we're only making the skeleton of the map so you should focus on how all the rooms and the locations connect with one another so it becomes this cohesive world and after you lay out this mini map then you could start to look at your timeline that you developed and start placing those key items and bosses in the rooms that you just created if you want to you can even draw a line showing the critical path and notice if your game seems too linear or too complicated so step number four is to block out these basic rooms create a mini map of your game it's so much easier to build each level in each room if you know how they connect with each other the fifth and final thing is to test review and adapt here's the part where you can start to flesh out each room in your game now you know how it correlates with everything else in the world and where all the key items are at it's a lot easier to lay out each room when you don't have to worry about how they connect with each other this is obviously in the point in your game where you'll have to be testing constantly running through rooms making sure they feel right making sure they're not too cramped or cluttered or creating puzzles that feel satisfying or make sense for the location also knowing that your water location is next to a forest can that affect how the level design is could you implement new mechanics or even how the terrain looks in there to reflect that but that's something you would never know unless you plotted at your map in the first place now for some of you this may seem obvious or like over planning but really i've noticed that it's sped up my process tremendously and instead on working on some arbitrary room everything feels connected and has a story to tell i feel like i can push each room in my game to have something unique because i know how it correlates now level design is a continual process and don't feel discouraged if sometimes you have to go back to one of the previous steps and do something over as always though i would love to hear what level design tips work for you and what your approach is for world building just in general if you're interested in playing drop dynasty make sure to wishlist the game on steam but if you can't wait make sure to join us on patreon and you can play the latest build of it today and speaking of patreon thanks so much to skids heath sergeant and rybred and the rest of the fantastic patreon supporters you guys are fantastic and you make all these videos possible thanks so much for watching and i'll catch you next time when we talk about the creative process for how we create the music for dewdrop dynasty i'll see you then [Music] you

Channel: Goodgis

Views: 150,837

Keywords: goodgis, ohio, devlog, game dev, indie dev, game programming, game process, how to make, firith, firith studio, metroidvania, dewdrop dynasty, how to level design, super metroid level design, how to design levels, metroidvania games 2021, metroidvania game design

Id: bAHXYfP38CA

Length: 7min 34sec (454 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 13 2021