I recently finished Unreal, thanks to GOG giving it away for free, and it's a very good game (and long, maybe even a bit too long) but there's one thing that kind of bothered me through most of it: the level design.

In a way, it's very good. Most of those levels are veri intricate, take a long time to finish, have a lot of areas to discover and sometimes navigating those labirynths is more of a challenge than the enemies. But then I started to think about some ofthose levels from a different persepctive. An "inside the game world" perspective. And I started to ask myself, why is every castle, every building, every deck of every ship etc. such a insane labirynth? When you think about it as places where people are supposed to function normally on daily basis, a lot of it just feels crazy.

And it's not the only game that does that. A particularly egregious example would be The Swapper, a game most of which is set on an abandoned space station. A space station that used to be normaly occupied by a research crew, but in the game is totally impossible to traverse without the super sci-fi gun that creates your clones. I have no idea how anyone was supposed to even go down a corridor in that place without having to clone themselves three times. And it's not like a test facility in Portal. It's supposed to be just a space station.

Maybe I shouldn't think too much about stuff like that. After all, it's game. It has to be game-y. Or does it?

Isn't Unreal a game with aliens? Maybe the aliens just have different cultural preferences from humans and enjoy the challenge of having to navigate labyrinths.

One of Oni's main criticism when it came out was that the level design was so bland. It was one of the few games where the buildings where designed by real architects and as real functional places. Take from this what you want.

I actually dislike when games have worlds that aren't properly functional.. Block a coridor with rubble or something, but don't just design your buidlnigs all willy-nilly in ways that make no logical sense. Too many games are designed as game worlds first and as environments second. I'd like to see that change some.

It's partly because it encourages exploration and a sense of accomplishment finding things hidden away. After all, there's no point in putting secrets in games if all the levels are 6ft wide like some modern games...

Edit: Probably the best game for commenting on this stuff in-game is NOLF2, where the bad guy henchmen openly joke about how impractical and over-elaborate underground lava-filled evil lairs are for world domination vs unsuspecting nondescript warehouses.

It's called Unreal for a reason. :P

I didn't find System Shock 2 believable at all, that ship was just too huge and had too many wide open spaces.
It also didn't have any toilets (or if it had and I have forgotten them not nearly enough for its large crew).

You don´t need toilets in space. You open the door and poo.

Astronauts wear diapers.

You're right, but I think it is possible to have complex levels that also make sense. To design a place that is only a maze for intruders who don't know it, or a place that became an obstacle course labirynth because it's damaged, half ruined etc.

Really, as with most things in games (branching storylines and choices, living worlds and NPCs etc.) it's the illusion that matters most. I don't need the game to really be a living, functional world, just as I don't expect monsters and spaceships in a movie to be real. I just like it when a game is not quite so obvious about being game, if that makes sense.

Sidenote: while that picture of dumbed down game design is both funny and true, I've also come to appreciate those changes a bit. Sometimes those old school games (in many genres, not just FPS) can get downright tedious in how complex and even obtuse they are. I still like the old school style approach the best for many reasons, but there is something to be said for a game that lets you just have a quick burst of fun.

Interestingly, I sometimes feel the other way about new versus old.

In the Zelda series, I find that the early Zelda games (especially 1 and 2) are great if you want a quick burst of fun, while the newer ones (especially the 3D ones) don't serve that purpose due to much slower progress and lots of cutscenes. I could easily beat the first dungeon in Zelda 1 or 2, and possibly the second, in the time it takes a casual player to *reach* the first dungeon in Ocarina of Time. It feels like I a making much more progress in a given amount of time in the NES games than I would in any later Zelda.

By the way, one it comes to realistic level design, I think of Etrian Odyssey's 5th stratum, which is rather interesting; the first floor has a floor plan like you would expect for such a building, while the deeper floors become more mazelike.

Edit: Also, one grammar corretion: it should be "lets", not "let's". ("let's" = "let us", and "let us you" doesn't work in English)

Right you are. Really no idea what I was thinking with that :D

How far up on the Fantastic scale is Exile/Avernum?

Picture this: The surface is a fictional series of providence ruled ironhandedly by a single controlling power known simply as The Empire. (When you're the only player...) Underground is a series of expansive caverns, known to surface dwellers only as Exile, and Avernum by those who inhabit it. An entire society, operating independently of the Empire, with their own chosen king, and a council of cities. Deeper in the caverns, live an indigenous race of lizard men along with a strange race of beings whose description is quite alien. Deeper yet…nobody speaks of such things.

I got a similar feeling with Thief (Gold). Ok so some of the levels were supposed to be weird, but also many of the normal levels felt very weird, making me wonder why is this passage made this way. It didn't feel like the places were designed for humans, or even non-humans. The first level of the whole game was one of the very few that made any sense in an architectural sense, and even it was quite maze-y.

Thief 2 seemed to do much better, most of the levels and places felt believable, like being inside a mansion felt like a mansion where someone might actually live.

I haven't properly played it (yet), but I recall hearing similar complaints about Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces 2. Like that there are short corridors which don't lead to anywhere but are merely dead-ends, small "cupboards" within walls in which enemy soldiers conveniently stand doing nothing etc. Maybe someone who has played the game more extensively can deny or confirm.