Attention, Level Designers: Build Choices, Not Challenges

Note: the following is a discussion on traditional platformer level design, particularly but not exclusively focused on Super Mario Maker 2. There is an immense variety of useful approaches to video game level design which can produce great levels. Mario games have their own design language, but so do Mega Man games, so do Kaizo Mario games, so do run n’ gun platformers, and so on. While some of the points I want to make here transcend Mario games alone, not every game or even every Mario Maker level can rely on them. Design is not dogma, and great design is more than just meeting one critic’s set of criteria. In a platformer, creativity and fun trump all else.

Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of Super Mario Maker 2. In doing so, I’ve been blown away by the abundance of great levels present–almost all of which were contributed not by game industry veterans or Nintendo’s in-house designers, but by avid players who may have never touched game design before. I’m pretty sure there are more truly excellent Mario levels in this one game than Nintendo has produced in their lifetime. However, I’d like to offer some constructive criticism–not just directed at one level or creator in particular, but at everyone. Most of us using Mario Maker are complete amateurs, or, if we’re being generous, “hobbyists.” Level design is an acquired skill and I don’t want to single out (and potentially discourage) aspiring beginners for their mistakes (by my subjective assessment), so you’ll notice a distinct lack of specific examples. This is a deliberate choice, though I recognize it might make my arguments harder to illustrate.

To the point, then: great platforming is predicated on more than platforming. Great platforming, like all great gameplay, is predicated on choice. This isn’t necessarily the kind of choice that gets lauded on the back of the box as a selling point for great role playing games–you’re not settling the fate of civilization or even developing a character. You’re Mario. You run moderately fast, and you jump on goombas. Choice can come in much simpler forms, too. Choosing when to press a button is a perfectly fine choice, to be sure. It’s a choice that comes up a lot in Mario games. Did you press the right button at the right time, hold it for the right duration, press the right direction? This is one of the most fundamental choices a player gets to make in any platformer. However, when a level consists of that choice over and over again–perhaps with increasingly strict timings on the “correct” answer and nothing more–those players less entranced by the timings of pressing a prescribed set of buttons in a prescribed order will be left wanting.

Many Mario Maker levels adopt the format of a challenge gauntlet: a set of difficult challenges in a row to reward players for mastering particular techniques. The players who learn the level get to effectively memorize a script: they learn their lines and perform them back. When they perform them with sufficient accuracy, they can move on from the level. Many of these levels are great fun. The challenge may involve bouncing off of floating enemies and around obstacles, or it may involve running from platform to platform without stopping. Many of them incorporate fundamental principles of platformer design quite well, introducing a challenge while iterating on it in a smooth but ever-increasing difficulty curve.

However, the other thing many of these levels have in common is that they offer few meaningful choices to the player. The choice to press the desired run, jump, or directional button sooner or later tends to be rather binary in these levels; either you press it within the appropriate window and you pass the challenge, or you press it at the wrong time and fail. This can be quite fun. When the level’s design makes passing sufficiently tantalizing and the window for failing sufficiently narrow, these challenge gauntlets can be deviously addicting to crack through. Still, I find that many of them ring hollow.

To understand why I think choice matters in Mario, look at how Nintendo designs a 2D Mario level. Super Mario Bros, World, New Super–it doesn’t actually matter which. Sure, the NES games tend to favor shorter levels and bigger shortcuts, while later games tend to favor exploration and less momentum-driven play, but they all share some key design principles. They offer escalating challenges (usually designed around a theme) which are balanced precisely in tune with Mario’s abilities. This formula is key to the traditional Mario experience, no doubt. But the level is never just that. Mario levels are also populated with moments of freedom–in other words, they’re full of choices. Safe spots might offer the player respite and smooth sailing in between the level’s core challenges. Mysterious secrets might tempt the player to explore off the beaten path. Off-theme challenges might test the player’s Mario fundamentals as much as their familiarity with the level’s main idea. Inessential platforms might allow the player to move more expressively than a purely minimalist level could. All of these serve to add more than just variety. They add choice.

In a real Mario level, a challenge rarely comes down to a pixel perfect platform landing or a strictly timed gauntlet of aerial bounces. There’s usually a bit of leeway. This isn’t just because Nintendo wants to keep the game easy. Instead, this room for error offers the player more choice. While a jump that you can only make while running at full speed may technically be harder than a jump which you can make at any speed, the latter offers the players more options for traversing it. A well designed level isn’t about always putting the hardest possible challenge in front of the player. It’s about offering them opportunities for risk, reward, and expression. Real Mario levels are littered with optional challenges–enemies or hazards guarding power ups, coins, collectibles, or secrets, that offer the player their own slice of risk and reward–and the choice to engage with it.

The player’s exact path in a real Mario level is never scripted. You can jump over the Monty Mole’s wrenches or run under them. You can carry the koopa shell to take out an enemy later or break bricks with it now. You can grab some coins from these blocks or run over top of them to get to the end faster. Even if the player doesn’t consciously think about making a single one of these choices and just runs through the level on muscle memory or gut reaction alone, they get to make every single one of them. To put it another way: your run-through of a Mario level and my run-through might look very different, even though we start and end at the same place. In my eyes, this makes a true Mario experience not only more personal, but also more compelling. Playing them–or playing any great platformer–is about so much more than The Challenge. It’s about how the player chooses to move through a world, however small, linear, and simplistic that world may be, since they have the tools to tackle it however they like–not just how the script tells them to. A great Mario level isn’t just designed to be mastered. It’s designed to be savored. And it’s not just a set of challenges. It’s a place.

So when you’re making your level, my advice is to think bigger than the challenge. Think about the world you want the player to inhabit or the story–simplistic though it may be–that you want to tell. Think about what choices the player has at any moment, and consider how you can increase them without drastically diluting or overcomplicating your level. This doesn’t preclude making hard levels, either. Levels can demand twitch reactions, precise jumps, or a strong understanding of game mechanics and still offer the player ways to make the level their own. Alternate paths can offer devoted players more to master while giving options to more casual players. Tempt the player with an appropriate reward, even an optional one, and they’ll take bigger risks, self-selecting a higher level of challenge.

You might fear that designing in too many choices will drive the focus away from the carefully crafted challenges you want to create. If the player has a way around your tricky jumping puzzles, they might not properly appreciate the effort you put into getting them just right. This is a valid concern, but more often than not, when I’m playing a platformer, or any game, I don’t walk away remembering that one tough jump I made or the way the enemies were cleverly laid out for me to bounce between them. I remember the feeling the level left me with. I remember the ways I made the experience my own. And I remember how much fun I had. Generally, when a platformer offers me a little more freedom, I have a little more fun. That’s what most of my favorite levels have in common. The running and jumping is great–essential, even. But the opportunity to play my own way is what keeps me coming back. If I wanted to play a game where I don’t need to make choices, maybe I’d try my hand at Guitar Hero.