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Courtney Leonie
Level Design
Best Practices for Controlling Tension Through Staged Combat
My thesis discussed best practices and methodologies to effectively control tension and create engaging encounter design by using staged combat . The outcome for this project was demonstrated through an artifact utilizing researched methodologies and the resulting data collected from the volunteer testers . The artifact was two single player maps / levels within Half-Life 2 . The key experience within the level was the change in combat encounters to raise or lower tension and create engaging gameplay .
I chose this thesis because I believe combat is one of the most nuanced and varied parts of level design . I wanted to better my understanding of how to create engaging combat sequences and help other level designers understand how they could do the same . The project was completed over a two-semester period that took it through a full research and development cycle into playtesting .
The project helped me to better understand how I can go about methodically creating more engaging combat experiences . I learned to leverage four different techniques ( height and distance , space , time , and player path ) to more effectively create engaging combat encounters . It was also helpful in understanding that tension in level design comes in a variety of different ways and combat is just one of those . It confirmed that staged combat was an effective way of controlling tension .
This thesis is helpful to other level designers who wish to create more engaging combat encounters and would like a more concrete set of practices that they can leverage to get the desired experience via staged combat .
52 LEVEL DESIGN