Practical Game Design

Pacing linear content

Linear game content is driven by the combined efforts of level design and the narrative, making it expensive and time-consuming to iterate on, but giving you the ability to control gameplay on a very granular, moment-by-moment basis. One of the best ways of exercising this control is to work with a timeline.

This timeline is a long graph spanning the entire length of a single, self-contained fragment of the game that we're about to pace. Gradually, your timeline will be populated with more and more precise details, creating a solid action plan and reducing iteration times dramatically. It's best to start this process early on, during the outline or blockout period, when there's still a potentially high degree of flexibility ...