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Three Inspirations for
Creative Level Designing

"Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvelous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant."
-Gore Vidal

While the previous works are categorized within the field of experimental/visionary architecture (all with pretty pictures and such) this particular work is in the form of a short fiction novel whose themes, content and observations manifest unique and magnificent places through the detailed interactions and perspectives of inhabitants and visitors.

Where Woods and Pamphlet Architecture present the structure, form, and function of space (and even possible narratives that motivate it), Calvino sculpts a kinetic living environment through his magical and realistic spatial expressions and observations. It is through the perspectives of these environments that he illustrates his ideas, and demonstrates elements of parable and fable.

The book is set in Kubla Kahn's Imperial gardens where the young Marco Polo and the elder Kahn sit and converse. Polo is describing his travels throughout the cities of the Kahn's vast kingdom. Within these fantastic descriptions comes the realization that Polo speaks not of many individual cities, but of the many cities that exist within one. Here, in a brief narration, Calvino is able to render meaning from the simple architectural structure of a stone bridge:

Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.
"But which is the stone that supports the bridge?"
Kublai Kahn asks.
"The bridge is not supported by one stone or another, "
Marco answers, " but by the line of the arch that they
form."
Kublai Kahn remains silent, reflecting. The he adds:
"Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch
that matters to me."
Polo answers: "Without stones there is no arch."

I have found that the themes in Invisible Cities can be applied to thematic elements in level designing: one should enforce (or even create) the narrative of a game or a moment within a game using the structures of the environment. The previous passage is reminiscent of the practice of using structures as metaphors in the narrative. In this case, Polo is talking about the individual people that make up Kahn's empire, whereas Kahn is only concerned by the one man who "supports the bridge" or the "arch" (i.e. government). Polo expresses that without the individuals, there is no empire.

A bridge can also represent the voyage and choice of transformation. So, in a game, what could the action of crossing a bridge mean (beyond being just a way to get over the lava pit to obtain the red key to open the red door)? When would it be appropriate for the character development to cross such a bridge? Whom would the character meet on that bridge and what would that person represent? Even if the player is not consciously aware of such metaphors, this type of construct is meaningful and effective in creating an overarching gestalt to the experience.

On a related note, one theme of the book is the expression of places and experiences in terms of symbolism, and in turn, the language that is spoken by those symbols, which is exhibited in this excerpt:

"Newly arrived and totally ignorant of the Levantine languages, Marco Polo could express himself only with gestures, leaps, cries of wonder and horror, animal barkings or hootings, or with objects he took from his knapsacks- ostrich plumes, pea-shooters, quartzes…the ingenious foreigner improvised pantomimes that the sovereign had to interpret: one city was depicted by the leap of a fish escaping the cormorant's beak to fall into a net; another city by a naked man running though fire unscorched; a third by a skull, its teeth green with mold, clenching a round, white pearl…everything Marco displayed had the power of emblems, which, once seen, cannot be forgotten or confused."

The next time you have to design a space from scratch, you could assemble and mix a cacophony of objects and actions to create such symbols (though running naked through a fire at work might be tough to explain as job related) from which you can construct new places that these symbols might represent. For instance, "a skull, its teeth green with mold, clenching a round, white pearl." Perhaps such a place conjured by this image is a city deep within a dark swamp, where the buildings are constructed entirely of bone and the inhabiting skeletons dive to gather pearls from oysters that cling to the roots of the bone trees. The images can also simply represent a city whose inhabitants' greed and materialism lead to untimely deaths, and so on and so forth.

In this example, Italo Calvino describes his own formula for crafting such magnificent environments:

"From now on, I'll describe the cities to you," the Kahn had said, "in your journeys you will see if they exist."

But the cities visited by Marco Polo were always different from those thought of by the emperor.

"And yet I have constructed in my mind a model city from which all possible cities can be deduced, " Kublai said. "It contains everything corresponding to the norm. Since the cities that exist diverge in varying degrees from the norm, I need only foresee the exceptions to the norm and calculate the most probable combinations."

I have also thought of a model city from which I deduce all the others," Marco answered. " It is a city made only of exceptions, exclusions, incongruities, contradictions. If such a city is the most improbable, by reducing the number of abnormal elements, we increase the probability that the city really exists. So I have only to subtract exceptions from my model, and in whatever direction I proceed, I will arrive at one of the cities which, always as an exception, exist. But I cannot force my operation beyond a certain limit: I would achieve cities too probable to be real."

The description of this next city is a great example of how Calvino simply reverses environmental roles, and shows what a great effect that can have on the narrative:

"The city of Sophronia is made up of two half-cities. In one there is the great roller coaster with its steep humps, the carousel with its chain spokes, the Ferris wheel of spinning cages, the death-ride with crouching motorcyclists, the big top with the clamp of trapezes hanging in the middle. The other half-city is of stone, marble, and cement, with the bank, the factories, the palaces, the slaughterhouse, the school, and all the rest. One of the half-cities is permanent, the other is temporary, and when the period of its sojourn is over, they uproot it, dismantle it, and take it off, transplanting it to the vacant lots of another half-city.

And so every year the day comes when the workmen remove the marble pediments, lower the stone walls, the cement pylons, take down the Ministry, the monument, the docks, the petroleum refinery, the hospital, load them on trailers to follow from stand to stand their annual itinerary. Here remains the half-Sophronia of the shooting galleries and the carousels, the shout suspended from the cart of the headlong roller coaster, and it begins to count the months, the days it must wait before the caravan returns and a complete life can begin again."

The following passage is another great example where environmental roles are toyed with creating a completely new idea of a city:

"What makes Argia different from other cities is that it has earth instead of air. The streets are completely filled with dirt, and clay packs the rooms to the ceiling. On every stair, another stairway is set in negative; over the roofs of the houses hang layers of rocky terrain like skies with clouds. We do not know if the inhabitants can move about the city, widening the worm tunnels and the crevices where roots twist: the dampness destroys peoples bodies and they have scant strength; everyone is better off remaining still, prone; anyway, it is dark. From up here, nothing of Argia can be seen; some say, "It's down there," and we can only believe them. The place is deserted. At night, putting your ear to the ground, you can sometimes hear a door slam."

Conclusion

While we as Level Designers can learn a lot from classical and contemporary ideas in structural architecture, I feel we should include, the visionaries that work outside of the restrictive hierarchies of reality. These experimental architects are able to spend their energies solely on the expression of their creations, as is our own modus operandi: to design and construct that which entertains or informs. However, as fantastic as these works may be, their constructs and perspectives still do not cross over into the abstract. These creations operate within a familiar system of logic, as is often a requirement in our own efforts as designers.

There is an essence to the unique processes by which these designs have come to be (individually and collectively) that I feel can be studied, explored and creatively applied in the art of level design: the careful incorporation of narratives within the environment, the process of rethinking the functionality of commonplace constructs, and the idea of space as a form of expression itself. We are quite fortunate to be designing and constructing in the same unbound system as these masters, and, unlike the architects and builders in the real world, we have the privilege of being able to immediately apply many of these ideas and techniques to our trade, so that perhaps others might be able to physically take part in such ideas, even if it is only as digital experiences in multi-dimensional illusions.

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