Level Design Overview - Open World Action

Inspired by 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild'.

Project requirement and focus:

Workflow

Pre Production: analysis to understand the game, concept development as the backbone of the development , then collect references for ideas.
General Path: establish explore direction as the backbone.
Landmark & Connecting Paths: divide level into areas and connecting paths.
Exploration & Gameplay: further divide area for pacing, then, design and place the activity.
Level Review And Optimization Cycle: make sure level meets requirement.

Image shows my pre production step, includes analysis on Zelda explore cycle, core concept humidity bar, and reference images.

In this step, blocking out the landscape allows us visualize the position and elevation of the landmark.

Building Foundation: general path and its direction make it possible to further divide path into section with only one direction to focus.
Collaborative Planning: This step also create space for design that require collaboration among different profession and have major impact on the development.

For example, the inner sea design, environmental storytelling from the lore that the sky city fallen onto this originally a single island countless years ago.
Further explore this design, combined with humidity system that makes player avoid water, this allows us to hide a explorable ruin in the inner sea, one has always been accessible for the player, provided with the dry state of the humidity system, but the player just didn't know.

In this step, I blockout and adjust the visibility of each landmark, then I plan the connecting paths.

Landmark - Strong Point Of Interest: High level attraction, after player woke up from the beach they would be attracted by a large wrecked ship. (Image L)

The design of of the wrecked ship as landmark is to, in the beginning of the game, combing with boxes on the beach misguiding the player to think that they have encountered a storm, preparing for story reveal.

Connecting Path - Branches Of The Path: by connecting landmark with multiple paths, player can choose their most interested path, each branch can then be further divided into smaller sections, allowing meaningful player decision making (free will).
Image right shows that the forest is connected to the road visually by attraction of the house.

In this step I blockout the 'road' that the player would actually be walking on.

Designing Webs - Further Divided Path: following the 'branches', each path can be make into a web includes multiple sub-path, and not just for allowing free will, but also consider exploration experience, like the placement of the activity, challenge and surprise (Image L).
Player Guidance - Point Of Interest: seamlessly exploration guidance (Image R).

Collectible items:Used to suggest off-road paths, lead to new areas, or indicate shortcuts.
Statue and landmark (right yellow)A statue points to a distant landmark, drawing attention and hinting at its significance.
Road:Direct but not always the easiest path between landmarks.
Hole in a ruin (left yellow) + dirt road: Suggests the presence of creatures, inviting exploration and intrigue.

In this step, I blockout each gameplay element and adjust the pace by placing natural element like rock, tree or sand in between.

Requirement: top-left image shows required activities needed for instructional area, and my placement planning, with a focus to pacing by blocking one activity from another visually.
Pacing Goal: (1~3) build surprise to hook, (4~7) series of small challenge building excitement, (9~10) reach climax with a big combat challenge.
Note That: specific cases of spatial design used in pacing would be shown in the following level flow section.

Rewarding: After experiment and analysis, I concluded an interesting level's activity needs to connect to a reward system, so activity is meaningful.
Interesting: Studying Zelda:BOTW I learned that the activity itself needs to be interesting or satisfying. On the level flow section, the stone hopping activity is a good example, inspired by my childhood tile hopping game.