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Arthur Lauren Davis
Level Design
Love Letters : Setting Tone , Changing Gameplay
In this thesis artifact , I examine the ways that player experience can be shaped by the story around them . Traditionally , designers seek to account for how player actions impact the world , such as having Non-Playable Characters comment on player actions . I created Love Letters as a way to explore the opposite : how worlds impact players . If players meaningfully change their approach to the same spaces or actions based on the narrative tone of the task , designers could use that effect to craft deeply unique experiences without doubling or tripling their work , such as by crafting a quest that will purposefully divide players down the lines of their internal narrative but carry them through a single quest path .
To do this , I created a quest in Fallout 4 that presented players with two possible quest-givers . Each provided distinctive tones — one bitter and angry , and one sad and nostalgic — to the same request
to locate the love letters left behind after their break-up . By comparing survey feedback from playtesters , as well as data gathered by tracking player exploration through each custom space , I was able to look at the possible correlation between quest-giver tone and exploration amount , as well as other emergent patterns .
This project allowed me to use level design fundamentals such as sightlines and color contrast to both lead the player to their ultimate goals and to engage them with the spaces . It also provides a starting point for further examination of the unconscious effects of world states on players ’ actions , which if fully explored , would help designers craft divergent , distinctive player experiences without also developing distinct player paths .
40 LEVEL DESIGN