Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design

Chapter 11. Progression Mechanisms

In Chapter 10, “Integrating Level Design and Mechanics,” we focused on the structural features of levels on a large scale. In this chapter, we examine the mechanisms that drive progression and that can be used to structure levels. We don’t restrict ourselves to the traditional mechanisms found in games of progression, but we look for ways to apply what we’ve learned from studying emergent gameplay to the mechanisms of progression.

Our goal is to find more emergent mechanisms of progression than commercial video games typically use, and we consider two different approaches. In the first half of this chapter, we investigate traditional lock-and-key mechanisms and identify ways to make them more dynamic. In the ...