ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the visual power of gamespaces, how it can be used to teach, and how it can control a player’s understanding of a game. It looks at how environment art helps designers inform players about the cause-and-effect procedures within a game. The pairing of visual art and procedural behaviors in game objects allows players to build strong associations between game objects and gameplay mechanics. Framing is a technique useful for enhancing the approach to important game environments: as the player moves through a gamespace, framed openings or expansions of space can enhance or foreshadow the player’s arrival at a point. The concept of gamespaces as systems of language and communication is an important one for level design. In game levels, the play between risk and rewarding players, often discussed in the design of games as risk–reward, is of utmost importance in creating interesting emotional experiences.
