How can my level guide the player?

For this research I'll be using a "Medium" article about how to guide the player in game levels. This will hopefully give me valuable insight into how I should make my levels to encourage the player to look around and encounter different things how I want them to.

Pinching/Funneling

Pinching and funneling is a technique used to force the player into going 1 particular way. This can make the technique good for making the player walk into a boss battle or perhaps discover something needed for the story. Since my game is just going to be going left or right, this doesn't really matter to me that much. Still though, I definitely think that I should plan how the player walks around my level carefully as the game is heavily story focused and they'll need to interact with certain things in the level to actually keep the game story progressing. This could probably be done by forcing the player to explore by disabling all forms of progression until they go where you want them to.

Framing

Framing is just a fancy way of saying manipulating the environment to make the player look at a particular thing or a certain direction. This can be really good when they need to go to that thing to actually progress the game, and can be a good and non intrusive way of guiding the player through your level. The main way I can think of using this is probably with the conversation at the door with the monster. I reckon you could have a light break or be exceptionally bright at the door to catch the players attention, practically telling them exactly where to go if they want to actually progress the story of the game. Otherwise, you could end up witht he player wandering aimlessly with little to no idea of where they're meant to be going or what they're meant to be doing.

Colour and pattern themes

Particular things such as green edges on rock can indicate that they are able to be climbed on. In the context of my own game, I could ensure that the different doors of the level are really obvious by making them completely uniform, perhaps making it do that the player knows exactly where to do if they want to traverse the map. Unfortunately, I can't really work out where else I could use any colour or pattern themes, though perhaps some ideas will come to be as I work on the game during production. 

Either way, using colour or patterns is a great non-intrusive way to let the player know when something is either possible or not possible, dangerous or safe and much much more.

Environmental clues

Another thing I could include in the game map are environmental clues. These could be as simple as just the speech events I already have planned. For example, you could give the player a clue on where to find something to defend themself against the monster with. This could be just a passing comment on how the person that used to use the radio broadcast station was a gun nut or that that is probably the best place you can think of to get something to defend yourself with if you need to. 

I quite like clues like this as my game will be heavily atmosphere focused as a horror game. The main thing I want to avoid doing is interrupting the player exploring and learning about the ingame world by just telling them what to do or where to go in full block letters.

Dialogue Hints

Dialogue hints are exactly as they sound, just hinting through the ingame dialogue system where to go next. This sort of hinting can avoid having to break the immersion the player has in the game by instead of just telling them what to do, telling them what to do or where to go through something that makes sense in the lore of the game. Once again, for a game that needs a relatively well crafted atmosphere, I need to ensure that the player is immersed at all times, with this being a major and relatively easy way to do that.

A way I could implement this into my own level is by having a level start with dialogue about hearing a strange sound, hinting that the monster is already in the building and so causing the player to naturally be more alert when playing the game. This is much more effective than just having a popup to warn the player, because it gives them the joy of being right about being cautious when they see the monster coming at them, making its death more relaxing and fulfilling. 

Another way I could implement dialogue hints is by having much more obscure hints perhaps during the conversation with the monster, where the character says something that makes the player realise that they need to go and do something such as get a weapon or hide somewhere. I definitely think that dialogue hints will be exessively useful during this project as I will try my very best to keep the atmosphere intact and the player stressed/scared whilst playing. 

Animations

Animations can be very useful in games. They are a lot more eye catching than still images and so can guide the player in a certain direction. Animations are also really good for telling a story as they depict what is happening rather than just a still frame. I could probably implement animations for things like a broken window, damaged wallpaper swaying a little bit, a monster walking past the window, a shake at the door or broken glass shimmering on the floor. These could all be great ways of drawing the players attention to how run down everything is, possibly making the player understand that not only the monster, but the very environment they are exploring is dangerous due to being so run down.

My main idea for implementing environmental animations is through the weather, with rain being visible falling outside of the windows. This would add some much needed atmosphere to the game as well as making the game world feel more alive and less robotic. It would also explain why the monster showing up is such a strange thing as the weather is so bad that it's obvious noone would be going to the radio tower for any good reason at all.

Text Boxes

Text boxes can be exceptionally helpful for telling the player key information that they can't figure out just by playing the game or through environmental hints. In my game, a lot of my story will be being told by speaking interactions that the player does at pre set locations around the game world, these change every time the story progresses. The inclusion of text boxes will allow me to tell the player why things are the way they are, why the station looks like it does and why the character is scared of the thing outside.

I can also use text boxes to tell the player when they can interact with something nearby, maybe telling them what key to press and when they're actually able to press it and have something happen. This can stop the player breaking the atmosphere by spamming the interact button in hopes of finding something.

I could link the text boxes to the animation idea to have my text boxes appear letter by letter, making the game look more alive, more well made, better thought out and more stylised. This could also make the player feel more entertained as they can see movement even during times they probably wouldn't be allowed to move.

Radar Systems

In theory, my game could include things like radar systems. This would just be a little menu that would tell you about things around you, letting you know where to go to find things but without outright telling you with text or an arrow. One of the main things I can think of is having the enemy be visible on some sort of radar in the broadcast room of the map, that way you could plan for when it gets close and kill it using this information. To be honest though, I think knowing where the enemy is would ruin the atmosphere and the horror that comes from the uncertainty of the encounter. This makes me think that it would probably be best to leave a radar system out of the game entirely as it would take a lot of time to program for little reason, time that could probably be used better elsewhere such as implementing animations, shading the sprites or programming things like the speaking boxes.

Since the radar idea just isn't needed for the games story to work, I really can't see a point to it at all and so won't be including it in my game, even if it has worked well for other games in the past.