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Angela Wu
Level Design
Best Practices : Using Lighting and Color to Affect Player Tension
“ Nightmare ” is a mod of Dying Light that uses best practices for lighting and color techniques to evoke emotional responses that affect player tension .
This project used theoretical research to establish best practice methodologies for the use of lighting and color to build a tension curve that the player would react to while interacting with the artifact . In the game , players must cross through a mental hospital . It contains nine rooms , in which I utilized different lighting techniques and colors to raise or lower player tension to achieve an expected game pacing , thus enhancing the player ’ s game experience .
This level was built over approximately 300 hours . I chose this topic because I was interested in studying the factors that cause player tension , such as lighting and color techniques .
In playtesting , each tester rated the tension in each room . This feedback was then utilized to assess whether the intended design was being achieved . Through this feedback , it was found that not all players understood the intent as expected , and fluctuations were found in comparison graphs . Therefore , it can be determined that designers need to consider all possible outcomes .
Because of this , I believe that my thesis can provide reference value for level designers to help them better control tension to enhance the player ’ s immersion and improve the player ’ s game experience . Designers can pursue the emotion or tension they want to achieve by combining various influencing factors .
50 LEVEL DESIGN