Inception and Level Design

Did you watch Christopher Nolan's action/mystery film: Inception back in July? Well it finally came out on DVD & Blu-ray and I am inclined to buy it... Haven't seen it? -Check out this trailer and go rent it! Yes, I've seen South Park's parody on it and can see through the satire, however, I appreciate it for another reason: Many things in Inception directly relate to level design and creating game worlds, we don't normally see these sort of themes in major motion pictures. At least not from Hollywood. A few examples come to mind...(Dark City & TRON; -Perhaps you can think of some more). Regardless, It's a theme that needs exploring, or at least more public exposure.

I pick on Inception because it really inspired that feeling of curiosity and imagination when exploring a new world where the rules are allowed to change. It touched on certain particular topics like knowing how to close off levels, and not make it obvious. Things we real level designers know all about. I read an article re-posted on www.worldofleveldesign.com that got me thinking about it. The author went and took notes from the movie and makes several good points...

• A "level" is about visuals, emotion and for games: gameplay. You want to focus on these because this is what the player will experience. The level is like a medium to transmit your emotions to the player(s).
• A game world should be an interesting place. Dream big, Create big. Work past your comfort zone to design new exciting places for your players to visit. Make it worth their time!
• Games worlds like other stories, should have an origin. They need to suspend the players disbelief that they may not actually exist. So they must be believable. (This is an ideal often adhered to in the design world). so treat your world as a real place. Design it for the people that would have been living there. Think of who those people are/were, and design it for them, then adapt it for the player.
  
• In creating a believable world, you can't make it go on for infinity, you must create boundaries. Boundaries should be of your control and inspiration, and not a result from unimaginative limitations. You must play with the player's perception of what is the playable world and what lies in the outer boundaries. You must master seamlessly merging the two so that they feel one in the same. You must hide boundaries in a clever and consistent way so that the player won't know any better, or question it.
• "Design with story in mind. Make sure the player has an objective you want them to fulfill. Make it clear, make it interesting."
• A theme often echoed in the world of architecture is "you don't have to be original in design." This is often hard to wrap your mind around as a Freshman, because you're ready to Wow your professors and everyone with the clever ideas you come up with. But truth be told, original ideas are often always iterations on an already good idea. So in this sense as the movie teaches: never create from memory... Always use reference material to create your worlds. Your memory is about translating that emotion and feelings of the spaces; use reference to make your worlds believable and consistent.
• "And Continue to create, never stop creating. Always design and build something new!"

So, as you can see I paraphrased a lot of what the guy had to say but you can read some of the other ones in the article (it's fairly short). It definitely has a way of rekindling that burning need to express myself in drawings and level design. These I feel are good rules to follow when designing worlds or "dreams" in this case They are good rules to follow because they tell us something about making a new medium of game design something of its own accord. These are rules you see slightly echoed in the traditional arts and mediums, but when applied as a design principle in the realm of creating a believable world, they're essential and within a reasonable approach to ensuring well design levels begging to be appreciated and upheld.

What do you guys think?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

I keep thinkin "fuck me, that's what, 800k? or more if you follow link to the 540k one"


I look at movies all the time and think that they'd make great maps. I see sunrises and scenes while I drive and think of maps too.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Great Post RIVEN..

And ORPH we share that in common then.. because I do the very same thing.

Yeah, I see some amazingly familiar sunsets/sunrises that look amazingly like Stalker ClearSky's.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I really want to see this film! I missed seeing it at the cinemas so I think I'm going to buy the dvd. When I watch it I'll look at the film from a level design perspective and report back here.

And indeed some good points there.

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Aaron's Stuff

LOL I KNOW! Inception is just like level design. Everytime they say something about designing a level, I nudged my mom who was right next to me lol.

Holy shit. Inception was amazing. I'm not sure how I can focus on the level design if I have a brilliant story in the way.

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Aaron's Stuff

Orpheus said:
I keep thinkin "fuck me, that's what, 800k? or more if you follow link to the 540k one"


I look at movies all the time and think that they'd make great maps. I see sunrises and scenes while I drive and think of maps too.

Hahahahahaha! Glad I'm not the only one bud! I do this all the time and haven't opened Hammer for a good 2-3 years! Edit: On topic, it certainly sounds like a first for that sort of concept to appear in a movie. Maybe regular people can relate to us better once they've watched that

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

It sounds like none of you guys have seen this movie. You should all watch this film it's great.

Coincidentally, this morning was the first time I've been in a lucid dream state. It was so weird, I couldn't even open my eyes.

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Aaron's Stuff

aaron_da_killa said:
It was so weird, I couldn't even open my eyes.

That seems to happen a lot when you add to much marsupial to your diet.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Well, you're right Aaron, I think the movie made a terrific storyline that caused you to think a bit, and imagine "what if" about your dreams and the effects they may have on you. But in another sense, the film really soared to new heights in my book due to its concentration on asking what it took to make a dream believable.

If for example to connect it to games, you only notice the inconsistencies of the dream only after you've woken up, as if, like they said in the movie, only the things you focus on are what you care about; the setting or whatever happens in the long haul of a dream can be nonsense and you wouldn't care.

In games, perhaps like Flynn has mentioned before in other topics, about a game like Half-Life being more realistic, well, it could be argued, that HL was realistic in the ways that he thought mattered the most, because he focused on those details the most. For example, it may be more realistic for Gordon to play with his weapons after not firing them for a while, or for a fallen foe's remnants to remain solid, but these issues fall in comparison if you line up all the inconsistencies HL may have with the real world...

Gordon never sleeps, he picks up things by walking over them instantly, let alone heal himself instantly. He can carry 15+ huge weapons without slowing himself down.... The list goes on; my point though, is that in this way, a game developer may be able to focus their attention to what matters most in their game to keep alive that suspension of disbelief, because essentially that's what it's all about. You need to keep the player believing they're not really in a game world, and that this place could possible exist given the right circumstances, and that your player character could actually thrive in the way they do in the game...possibly.

Maintaining a strict regiment on how well your player will be drawn into your level and set of core gameplay rules may affect how well those players "tune-in" to your environment, and really believe and act in a manner as if they did. They should want to role play that character they're controlling. Do the things they would do if that place really existed.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

What if maps were as easy as Leonardo said, they just create themselves to feel believable.

And who else thinks that life in limbo wouldn't be so bad... Infinite pure creation of the mind? How is that bad!?!?! I would have so much fun!

It's not infinite pure creation because the subconscious still controls how things behave. And in limbo you're trapped by yourself unless somebody else is in your limbo and you cant wake up from it you just have to wait it out.

Even Cobb who was trapped inside Limbo with his wife said it was bad after a while.

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Aaron's Stuff