One Level, Three Goals: Prototype the Agency, Not Just the Map

Illustrative photo by Javier Martínez on Unsplash.

A bridge can be a shortcut, a lookout, or the place where you wait for a teammate. You do not necessarily need three maps to make those three experiences. You can start by changing what counts as success.

Here is a small prototype exercise: build one walkable level with a bridge, a longer path, a landmark and an exit. Keep movement speed, geometry and camera controls fixed. Then give it three separate objective configurations.

Make the goal an explicit design variable

• Route mode: reach the exit in the shortest time. The bridge offers a route-planning decision.
• Observation mode: identify a symbol on the landmark, then reach the exit. The lookout becomes relevant to completion.
• Together mode: get both players to the exit; finish only when both arrive. The bridge can become a meeting point rather than just a shortcut.

These are proposed modes, not reported findings from a shipped game or a tested experiment. The useful question is whether changing the objective changes the activity you are asking players to enjoy.

The first two modes can share a single-player scene. The third introduces a second player, so treat it as a separate design exploration, not a clean causal comparison against the first two. Social presence is another changed variable.

The philosophical idea behind the exercise

In his 2020 book Games: Agency as Art, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen argues that game designers work with agency: they specify goals, abilities and obstacles, shaping the practical activity a player temporarily inhabits.

His reader’s guide explains this with running and jumping in Mario, among other examples. It also distinguishes playing for the value of winning from temporarily caring about winning for the experience of the struggle.

That is a philosophical account, not a clinical trial or proof that a particular game improves real-world judgment. For a developer, its immediate value is a design lens: the objective is part of the expressive material, alongside art, sound and narrative.

A beautifully drawn landmark may be noticed in any mode. But making observation relevant to the goal asks the player to relate to it differently. A level is not only a collection of visible objects; it is a space for doing things that matter within that game.

Define completion before collecting telemetry

For each mode, write down four things:

1. What the player is told to accomplish.
2. What actions they can take.
3. What the game actually checks before awarding completion.
4. What feedback tells the player why they succeeded or are still playing.

For observation mode, merely reaching the exit should not count as completion if identifying the symbol is the stated requirement. Equally, a hidden extra condition should not surprise a player who fulfilled the instructions.

Keep the rules visible enough to understand without turning every interesting choice into a waypoint. Clarity about the goal is different from prescribing every move.

Ask about attention, not only speed

Record completion and route choice if useful, but pair them with a short conversation:

• What did you notice first?
• Which part of the space mattered to your plan?
• What made you change direction?
• Which moment would you choose to experience again?

A longer completion time is not automatically worse. In observation mode, stopping to inspect the landmark might be the intended activity. In together mode, waiting may be cooperation rather than confusion.

Rotate the order of modes across playtesters when practical, because knowing the map already can change later runs. Note prior familiarity and do not present a handful of sessions as a controlled study. Use the results to improve the prototype, not to claim universal player psychology.

A goal can be an artistic choice

This does not mean every game needs a score, multiple modes or branching endings. It means that when a goal exists, choosing it is part of choosing the experience.

Before adding another room, try asking whether the room you already built invites the kind of deciding, moving or cooperating you want to create.

Which game objective changed how you noticed a familiar space?

Further context: KRI ZEK’s philosophical lens on games as art and experience.

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