I'm a Game Design student in London, currently preparing to write my final year dissertation. I'm focusing on the field of level design, specifically at how the environment's physical form (architecture, geometry, that kind of thing) can be used to influence the route the player takes. In other words, how do we (the designer) steer the player down a certain path using the level environment itself? As I'm still in early stages I'm researching the related topics. I wondered if anyone here had any useful resources they would recommend. They areas I'm currently planning to look at are: - Level design for games - Architecture, public spaces, museum layouts, theme park layouts - Image composition, drawing the eye - Spatial navigation I preferably need academic resources please! If you wish to see my research pitch (PowerPoint) for a little more information, it can be downloaded here: http://rapidshare.com/files/311257720/pitch.ppt

I'd recomend looking at some papers for theme park design/layout.

You can find some interesting design decisions that have become common like having the "left" path at the entrance be a wider vista, while the right path being a tiny bit narrower and having trees. Amoung other things to help keep crowds down in such a crowded situation.

I think a nice low-tech intro would be if you looked at hedge mazes and labyrinths. The idea of traveling a unicursal path through a 2D area such that the traveler spends the most time traveling and feels as if they are wandering, yet doesn't actually get any choices and passes through every area exactly once - that's a core concept of level design. Good excuse to use pretty pictures too, if pictures are allowed in your dissertation.

Thanks, this is useful stuff, but please keep it coming!

I've found some very relevant studies into spatial navigation in virtual environments which has a lot of crossover to the medium of games.

I'll be conducting some preliminary prototype tests to gather data. The more data the better so if anyone's interested feel free to participate. I'll keep you posted here.

My university has done some research into navigation in virtual environments:

http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/royr/research/navigation/

An examination of basic dungeon patterns
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dnd/dungeonmaps.html

Valve has some articles on how they used lighting to direct playing in Left 4 Dead. It's some very clever stuff. Sorry I can't direct you to the exact article right now, can't download them to check.

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications.html

I'd look at "Connecting Visuals to Gameplay at Valve," or "How Valve Connects Art Direction to Gameplay," or "Stylization With a Purpose: The Illustrative World of Team Fortress 2,".

Thanks, these are great!

RaydenUni: I'm trying to avoid looking at lighting. My dissertation should be extremely focused so I'm just looking at geometry, overall architecture, mainly physical form. Thanks though, as a lot of this crosses over and is still relevant.

Haven't read these old articles by CliffyB in a long while, but I know he has a lot of good stuff to say on the matter.

The Art and Science of Level Design
http://www.cliffyb.com/art-sci-ld.html

Unreal Tournament Level Design Musings
http://www.cliffyb.com/rants/ut-ld-tips.shtml
(old format) http://www.cliffyb.com/ut-ld-tips.htm

More stuff I've found.

Valve released info on their maps including death heatmaps. Might be useful to you.
http://www.steampowered.com/status/tf2/tf2_stats.php

Have you read some fundamental architecture books? A lot of the concepts you are looking at; drawing the eye, spatial navigation; those are no different than in real architecture.

http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Space-Francis-D-K-Ching/dp/0471286168
looks good.