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Alexandra Vaughn
Level Design
Empathy and Immersion : Best Practices for Ludonarrative Design in Open World RPGs
This artifact is an evaluation of various design techniques for achieving ludonarrative harmony in open world Role Playing Games . The final artifact is a series of quests in Fallout 4 , which utilize determined best practices to achieve ludonarrative harmony and player immersion . At project conclusion , a total of 350 hours was spent in development .
This project was selected because , as open world RPGs progress and new technology is introduced , it will be imperative for designers to consider designing for ludonarrative harmony in order to promote player immersion . Through the development cycle , I was able to further expand my scripting knowledge in Bethesda ’ s Creation Kit and exercise my set dressing skills .
context that the quests will take place in and then design the quest and mechanics to compliment that . In addition to this , it is important to realize that in such an open game , players are able to build their character ’ s personality to fit whatever archetype they want . Due to this , along with designing for different combat styles , designers must also give a wide variety of dialogue and quest progression options . This will allow players to take the steps that fit their player character in order to complete objectives while also mitigating potential dissonance . Another important aspect that was confirmed via data was that by having time constraints on important quest objectives , designers would be able to further add to player immersion in their quests .
When designing quests for ludonarrative harmony in open world RPGs , it is important to consider the narrative
64 LEVEL DESIGN