From Construction to Perception: Three Views of Level Design for Story-Driven Games

Besides the division of game narrative into embedded narrative and emergent narrative,* or individual story-related design concepts, such as theme, character, goal, conflict, linearity, and so on,† what more do we need to know about how to create a game that offers a satisfying narrative experience? In particular, when playing through and analyzing a narrative-enriched game level, what design considerations and principles can we see and learn? While engaged in the escalation of gameplay difficulty and character status during level traversing, a player’s first impression and continuous perception of the gamespace is crucial to her or his understanding of the happenings and ability to perform actions.