It’s been a week or so since I posted any of my level design articles but I just found this paper on level design that is absolutely amazing. It’s written by the lead level designer on the game Splinter Cell: Choas Theory and he gives a great overview of the theory behind developing single player levels to tell a story. He doesn’t give a high level overview but a mid level overview of level design as he calls it.

The difference is… level design today is no longer simply a technical process of implementing game design patterns. Level design today has become a narrative art, and we at least need to look at level design as narrative in order to improve our level design. In other words… it’s all about the story.

Of course, I’m not going to leave you hanging with a mindless platitude. Anybody can say ‘It’s all about the story’ and increasingly, just about anybody will. It’s one thing to say it, it’s another thing to tell you why level design is all about the story, and how to make your level designs stronger by using narrative tools.

I’m not here to say at all that story is the most important thing. In a game, interactivity is the most important thing. Anyone who says different is wrong. I’m kind of being a smart-ass when I say it’s all about the story. What I’m trying to suggest, in fact, is that if we accept that level design is a narrative art – maybe not about telling better stories, but more about facilitating the player’s ability to tell himself better stories, then we need to look at the tools and structure of narrative and ways that we can learn from them and bring applications from narrative into level design.