Wayfinding in Video Games This article will use examples from Unreal Tournament 1. While many of you will not remember this game, it was very popular in the late 20th century, and its simplicity creates a better discussion medium. I use Capture The Flag and DeathMatch levels, for two simple reasons. Firstly, Deathmatch maps constantly recreate the fighting scenario: find a gun, find a place, fire the gun. So in DM maps we have isolated and repetitive examples of the mental processing that goes into fighting in any level in any gametype. Secondly, while Wayfinding is most important in single player campaigns, CTF is basically one single player objective over and over again: Can I find the enemy flag and remember how to get back to my own? So, looking at many different CTF maps gives us lots of brief examples in which a designer must create a narrative or storyline to take the player through the level in a straightforward manner. However, there is such a thing as too straightforward. The casual online gamer has routinely found themselves in levels which were little more than one room with junk in the way. Levels such as CTF-andACTION and CTF-ThornsV2, pictured above, were obscenely successful Junk Maps. As designers, it would be really great to dismiss these levels altogether, except that they were played one million times! So there must be something we can glean from their popularity. First, it teaches us that any map may become successful if it finds the right niche on the right server. And conversely, even if your map has all the right stuff, it may not be successful at all because gamers are fickle. Second, it supports my earlier statement about gameplay being something level designers have little control over, because these levels do have 'gameplay', some people have a blast in them. But this gameplay is completely based on the physics and parameters of the game itself. Last, and most relevant to our discussion, Keep your layout straightforward. A level should be quick to learn and easy to perceive from the outset. If routes will go in general directions have likely conclusions, players will have to learn your map less, because they can predict the layout themselves. Now, while Junk Maps are complete failures from a design perspective, they share an interesting similarity with levels of the opposite sort; those which have confusing layouts. Often times complex levels and simple levels are both poorly organized, so both rely on Signage to navigate a player instead of a narrative. I want you to use your critical thinking skills, and carefully discern which of the pictures below is of the Red base, and which is of the Blue base in CTF-Darji16 by Alan Willard. You did figure it out, right? This is the sort of patronizing crap which often passes for Identity. In order to direct a player from his or her base to the enemy base, designers frequently employ overt signage to signify ownership. The problem with signage, is that it must be read separately. That is, when the brain processes the scene, it must make an additional association that a red symbol indicates your location, because the symbols themselves don't have any actual meaning. Instead they have a rendered meaning, which has to be rendered just like anything in the game itself, and this takes additional time. But more disturbingly, these signs are completely ambiguous, they don't tell you which base you're headed towards, which is really what Wayfinding is all about. As a player you don't care where you are, you care about where you're going. And signage is an inefficient way of delivering this information. These conscious clues and symbols quickly become confusing outside of simple CTF, so it is necessary to find a quicker way of developing cognitive maps. To do this, we rely on Identity and the subconscious. The mind constantly associates colors and shapes of a particular room and remembers different identities associated to these characteristics - specifically, if a base is the Red team's or the Blue team's, or whether it is a No Man's Land. But also, whether it contains a gun they like, or a place to go if they need safety and healing. So if the only indication of this identity is a sign on a wall, then you can be sure, with all there is to see in a level, that players will frequently miss it even if they've been there before. Humans just do not read signs well. Ever tried to navigate a hospital, shopping mall, or large office building? These places rely exclusively on signage to indicate where things are because the entire building looks the same. There is no individuation like there is in nature, no landmarks or distinctive qualities to help us recall the quality of the space or create an identity to give it meaning. As such, this type of wayfinding is extremely slow and often requires a great deal of backtracking, which is completely unacceptable in video games. So, Level Designers need to remember the economics of wayfinding. Signage is slow, Identity is fast. All of this is a part of our evolutionary makeup, we remember the atmosphere of an environment, because it tells us whether or not we're about to get eaten. Assessing the safety and nature of a space is a primal skill for surviving in a violent and unpredictable world, which is essentially what video games try to recreate. * * * So let's look at some other examples of how Level Designers try to create separate identities and discuss how successful or unsucessful they were. These two images are from Shane Caudle's DM-ArcaneTemple. This level uses a very strict texture palette, and this narrow array of greens could be very confusing. But what Mr. Caudle does successfully is create Specific Identity. The identity of the first room is one of action, overhead danger, potential healing, and ominous atmosphere. The second room has qualities of a slower pace, exciting pickups, and beauty. These qualities are derived from actual physical distinctions, any previous experience in the level, and our own personal associations which are too numerous to list individually. These visual data give the brain a general sense of things, and these feelings and knowledge comprise an Identity which a player will recall when they enter the room again. These two pictures are from Rich Eastwood's DM-Malevolence. These rooms illustrate how even if a designer can not give each room a creepy, giant wall-face, or a beautiful waterfall pool, you may still create Specific Identity. This first room is defined by a strong semi-circular shape along the back wall that is echoed around the stairways which lead the player about the space. The second room uses an elongated shape and three strong pillars with overhead elements to define the space. Because these four example rooms have Specific Identity, a player will remember important and relevant objectives related to the space. Specifically, the first room in DM-ArcaneTemple has some health, in the second the Redeemer superweapon is at the bottom of the pool. In DM-Malevolence, the first room has the Rocket Launcher, and the second has Body Armor. These pickups are all desirable objectives and because these rooms all have a Specific Identity a player will enter these rooms and immediately remember the associated objectives. He or she won't waste time re-searching for things, and will have intuitively learned the level more quickly than if you had given him or her signs indicating where all the pickups were located. This individuation is really only helpful once you're already in a room, however. It's not as helpful when a player is trying to find a room. This brings us back to our main wayfinding example, CTF. Earlier I explained how signage can be ineffective. Now we will look at other cues which help lure a player in the right direction without any reading or heiroglyphics. This pair of images is of two different entrances in Sidney Rauchberger's CTF-Noxion. He uses what I call a Weak Lighting Cue to tell the player they are in the Blue or Red base, respectively. You can see that it isn't very effective when used in such a limited manner. But it also isn't as ugly or cryptic as giant team symbols. This next set of pictures is from Elliot Cannon's CTF-November. This would be an example of a Strong Lighting Cue. He uses heavily saturated lights of the team color to reassure the player that they are entering that team's base. These strong cues aren't much better than giant team symbols either, but they are better, because the light effects several surfaces, where a texture is usually just one. Affecting multiple surfaces is the first step towards creating Atmosphere, which in Level Design is the fulfillment of an Spatial Identity. So while lighting is useful, architecture and texturing can really take things to the next level. And this is where CTF-November really succeeds: asymetrical bases. Because the bases, pictured above, are different architecturally, he really does not need lighting cues to inform the player of their location. The lighting cues merely reassure the player as they learn the level. I believe this is signage's proper place. It should reassure the player and contribute to a space's identity, not dominate it or serve as a substitute for Narrative, as in the following pictures. Now, the Flag Room should be the culmination of the CTF Narrative and all the distinctive qualities which comprise a base. How do these next two Flag Rooms, one from CTF-Noxion, the next from CTF-Darji16, create an identity? They do it with signage, which yields nothing to the character of the environment, it creates no individual meaning for the different flag bases, and makes the entire atmosphere cold, uninvolving, and worst of all: Forgettable. Every cue the designer has given the player along the way must conclude at the location of the objective. This creates a Narrative Style, which is a story of different themes and articulations in level space which suggest a conclusion to the theme. This is what leads a player. They are drawn in by the opening of a different theme in the enemy base, and follow the path as the enemy base's identity becomes more clear, and then resolves with the Flag Room. A level which accomplishes this quite well is Cedric Fiorentino's CTF-Kosov, both flag rooms pictured above. If the blue flag were not pictured, it is likely that a new player would be able to guess which base was which. This would be amplified by the slow transition in styles between bases. Now this level was unsuccessful because the layout was not straightforward. But, what this level achieves is a single player quality of Specific Identity between where a player starts and where the objective lies, and a Narrative Style to transition between the two. Another level which was very successful at creating separate identities in both bases was Rich Eastwood's CTF-Terra. Mr. Eastwood does this by using two completely different texture palettes in each base. The bases are architecturally identical, but by using different palettes and changing all the lighting values, the player knows which base he or she is in even if they cannot see the team signage. As games have developed since the release Unreal Tournament 1, this has proven to be the most economical way of distinguishing bases. Architectural manipulation like CTF-November or CTF-Kosov really isn't possible with the amount of time that must go into creating static meshes. Furthermore, architectural changes are usually bemoaned by the online community for creating uneven matches. So there's little motivation to create assymetrical bases if they will be unpopular and take far longer to create, even if the wayfinding results are so dramatic. So while using different themes and transitioning them with a Narrative Style can only be fully manifest in a Single Player campaign, Wayfinding lessons can still prove extremely helpful in the fast-paced multiplayer arena.

___________________________________________________________________ Please note that all the ideas and designs found on this website are the intellectual property of Andrew Monroe, and may not be used without proper citation and written permission from the author/designer. These ideas and designs are my life's work and I will have no misgivings about their authenticity or ownership.