Why players get lost in your levels: wayfinding in games with landmarks, an auto-map and three more tricks

Players get lost when every corridor looks the same and nothing tells them which way the goal is. They walk into a dead end, come back, and can’t remember whether they’ve already tried the next door. Kevin Lynch found that people read a city through paths, districts and landmarks (The Image of the City), and players read levels the same way.

Each demo below runs the same small dungeon twice: five rooms, two dead ends and one loop, with the same explorer heading for the same chest. The left side has every trick on except one; the right side has all five. White dots mark tiles walked once and red dots mark tiles walked again, so you can see the doubling back. A timer above each side shows the time and the seconds “lost” (time beyond the shortest route). Play without it and Play with it let you walk the level yourself with the arrow keys, WASD or a finger on a phone. The fog gets almost black while you play, so you feel how much the trick is doing.

1. A clear main path

Give the level a spine. Make the main route wider than the side paths (about 1.5 to 2 times), brighter, or in one accent colour that no side path uses, and make every branch lead back to it. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst colours the objects on the route red so players know where to go next: “Follow the Red” (EA). In our demo, the left explorer reaches a hall with four exits of the same width and tries them one by one: 12.5 s, 9.1 s of it lost. On the right, a wide red route goes straight through the hall: 3.9 s, 0.4 s lost.

2. A landmark seen from afar

Put one tall, unique thing near the goal that shows over the walls from most of the level. Walt Disney called this a “wienie”, something that pulls visitors down the street; game developer Stephen Clarke-Willson applies the idea to levels, with Death Mountain in Ocarina of Time as an example, and adds: “when you’re stuck for an idea for a wienie, try a tall pointy thing” (above-the-garage.com). In our demo it’s a glowing tower behind the chest, drawn over the fog. Without it, the explorer finds the chest by trying every door (about 10.5 s, 7 s lost). With it, the explorer keeps the tower in sight and ignores the side doors (4.0 s, 0.5 s lost).

3. Colour zones

Give each area its own floor colour, light and props, so players can name where they are: “the blue crypt”. No two neighbouring rooms should share a palette. Lynch calls these areas districts: parts of a city with “common identifying characteristics” (Wikipedia). In our demo, every room on the left is the same sand floor with the same barrels, so the explorer walks a full circle back to the start without noticing (9.5 s, 6.0 s lost). On the right, the rooms are Sand Hall, Moss Hall, Blue Crypt, Red Forge and Violet Vault, and the explorer sees that the sandy start is behind it (4.6 s, 1.2 s lost).

4. A map that fills itself in

Keep a small map that draws only what the player has seen, and marks the player, the goal and every exit not walked through yet (a ”?” works). Doom’s automap “shows all walls the player has seen since entering the level” (Doom Wiki). In our demo the minimap sits over a block of wall in the top corner. Without it, the explorer can’t tell which doors it already checked and walks into the same dead end twice (12.2 s, 8.8 s lost). With it, finished rooms are marked done and the explorer goes to the marked goal (6.6 s, 3.2 s lost).

5. A reward at every branch end

Put something at the end of every side path: a pickup, a view or a shortcut. An empty dead end feels like a mistake, and it makes players wonder what they missed. Celeste’s chapters have branching paths that lead to optional challenges and hidden strawberries (Wikipedia). In our demo there’s a potion at every dead end on the right. On the left the explorer finds empty rooms, starts to doubt every door and searches longer (10.7 s, 7.3 s lost, against 6.9 s and 3.5 s lost on the right).

Measure the time lost

The tricks work together, and too much of any one of them flattens the level. Some rules for tuning:

• Count seconds lost, not just total time: seconds spent walking tiles you’ve already walked without getting closer to the goal. Have a bot or a tester go from start to goal with each trick off and on.
• Empty dead ends should be zero. If a branch has nothing worth putting at the end, cut it or loop it back to the main path.
• Keep side paths optional, not invisible. If the main path is so loud that nobody ever opens a side door, make it a little quieter. Exploring should be a choice, not a mistake.
• Ask testers two questions: “Where are you?” and “Point to the goal.” With the tricks on, both answers should be right more often.

If players still get lost in the first minute, the problem is often teaching, not the map. See game tutorials without text.

Add it to your game

1. Copy the skill at the end of this page into your project.
2. Ask your agent: “Players get lost in my levels. Fix the wayfinding.”
3. Play it, then tune in plain words: “The red path is too loud, nobody tries the side rooms.”

Art in the demos: Tiny Dungeon by Kenney (CC0).