Hill's Peak
Engine: Dying Light Developer Tools
Genre: Adventure/Survival
Design Goals: Create and implement best practices for motivational valance theory in a single player environment
Design Overview
Hill’s Peak was my final thesis project for my masters degree in Interactive Technology. It is a self-contained mod for Dying Light which seeks to explore the application of valance theory in outdoor, non-stealth environments. The mod consists of a small island where players are tasked with finding their way from the shore to a lighthouse located at the center of the map. Motivational attractors and deflectors were utilized based on a list of predetermined best practices and then evaluated through playtesting.
Valance Theory
Valance theory dictates that affordances can be categorized as either positive or negative. Players are attracted to positive affordances and repelled by negative ones. In the context of games, positive affordances may include pickups or story elements, while negative affordances include enemies and environmental hazards. The theory was most famously applied to stealth games including Thief. Motivational Valance Theory can easily be extended to other genres, where motivators follow a different player motivation (e.g. exploring new areas or acquiring loot) rather than simply evading detection.
A list of motivational levers was compiled using available resources including academic papers, GDC talks and published games, then selected based on their compatability with Dying Light's specific gameplay factors. The final motivator chosen for this project were:
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Risk Aversion- enemies and environmental hazards
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Resource Availability- health pickups, weapons, ammo, loot
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Ease of Movement- pathways, elevation gradients, uneven surfaces, confined spaces
Level Design Process
The level design process was approached first and foremost as an opportunity for evaluating the selected motivational levers. Hill’s Peak is divided into six contiguous areas. Having distinctive areas allowed for more targeted level design, as well as simplifying the feedback process. The success of a given lever could be gauged independently, as distinct units.
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Beach - Threat avoidance
Fort - Resource availability
Lot/Forest - Perceived directness
Favela -Navigation through a complex space
Sewer - Indoor application of affordance
Summit - Level conclusion
Using the lighthouse as the player’s target afforded two major benefits. Its size and position made it an ideal landmark that players could use to orient themselves. Second, its location at the summit of the island gave players a clear logical motivation: to follow the terrain gradient upwards.
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Application of Motivational Levers
The flow of the level consists of a main path, as well as several, secondary paths. By monitoring players’ choices between staying on the main path and deviating to the secondary path, the project hoped to gauge the effectiveness of the motivational levers in use, with the expected behavior being that players will always choose the more attractive path (i.e. the path with the most positive motivators and fewest negative ones).
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In several instances, the most attractive path was not the most direct. One example is in the Fort. Players are directed into a bottleneck with a controlled vista. Directly ahead is a rockslide leading up to a forested area. On the other side is a flat path leading away and toward a small market with a flare beacon. While taking the rockslide path is more direct and affords an elevation gain (getting closer to the lighthouse), the number of motivational attractors on the flat path was expected to outweigh the direct path.
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The images below show views of the level through both a normal and motivational lens. Bright green indicates a strong motivator (such as a path leading upwards or known opportunities for player progression). Conversely, red represents deterrents (such as dangerous enemies or blocked paths).
Threat Avoidance
Players begin their journey on the island’s shore. The spawn point affords a controlled vista for establishing player motivation
Competing Levers
The fort offers players the first opportunity to exercise freedom through choice of pathways. The main path goes to the left, while the secondary path involves climbing the rockslide to the right.
Perceived Directness
The lot is accessible to players who chose the fort route rather than the forest secondary path. In playtest surveys, players who identified this as recognizable were most likely to have complied with the expected main path.
Navigation Through a Complex Space
The favela is a complex space requiring players to parse a large number of visual stimuli.
Application to an Indoor Space
The sewer was the final challenge within Hill’s Peak. It combined all the previously used levers within an indoor space, which offered the benefit of a controlled player path.
Player Feedback
The final level was tested by 7 individuals of varying ages and video game experience levels. Each playthrough was recorded and players were directed to fill out a survey. The survey consisted of 8 questions divided into two sections.
The first involved questions related to the player’s subjective experience including how open the level felt, how often they felt lost and how well they understood their ultimate goal. Responses were on a Likert scale from 1-10.
The second section asked players to examine a series of screenshots and mark the ones corresponding to locations they had visited during their playthrough. By analyzing the feedback from this section, it was possible to determine how frequently players followed the main path vs. deviating to secondary routs.
The feedback process was made more difficult by confounding world events. When the project was initially conceived, several large populations had been identified as potential play-testers. However, contacting and engaging with these populations became significantly hindered after the outbreak of Covid-19. As a result, the final sample size was extremely limited, making any kind of significant statistical analysis impossible.
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Two questions in the survey aimed to gauge players’ perception of being lost. These were “I felt like I was frequently lost” and “I knew where I was going all the time.” In 4 of the 7 responses, players reported a low ratio (they were infrequently lost and knew where they were going). However, several players reported feeling lost during their playthrough. Reviewing recordings of their play sessions showed no wandering behavior. This would suggest that, while players felt lost, they were still guided by the principles of motivational valence theory, confirming this project’s hypothesis.
Additional Discoveries
An unexpected result of the project was the identification of a new motivational lever. Within the context of outdoor environments, evidence of human influence on the landscape is its own positive motivator. When given a choice, players will gravitate toward man-made pathways, even when a naturally formed avenue is available.
The rationale for this behavior could be attributed to several factors. Man made objects are much more likely to include leading lights and lines. Players may have also been conditioned by previous gameplay experiences to view wilderness as the edge of a play-space with no potential for gameplay or loot. Further studies are required to determine the exact reasoning.
Conclusion
The mod was successful in its intention of demonstrating the effectiveness of motivational valance theory in outdoor environments. The selected motivational levers correlated with the expected player behaviors. In addition, it was discovered that, within the context of outdoor spaces, evidence of human influence on a space can be its own motivator. When given the choice, players gravitated toward man-made paths rather than forging their own through untamed landscapes.