Utilising Level Design Artifacts to Maximise Fun
by Kayra Yorulmaz
Category: STEM
Abstract – In Video Games, a change in difficulty is usually the biggest contributor to the enjoyment a player would face (alongside graphics, sound, etc.). However, the difficulty does not exclusively come from game elements such as the intelligence of enemy AI or the rarity of items. This paper is meant to examine how changes in the aspects of the level design itself would be a major change in enjoyment. We examine previous works and find that there is not much research on the effect of changing the level design can affect player enjoyment. We create a theory on player enjoyment and along with measures of enjoyment and how game level design elements could be changed, added, or removed, and by adding these changes to artifacts we could improve general enjoyment in a Minecraft custom level. We found that level design on its own was enough to increase player enjoyment and that the primary factor we identified for increased player enjoyment was immediately recognizable details concerning the goal of the level or stage.