Games that are 90% level design

[Erik_Twice]

These games do not look too special. I mean, they don't have anything sticking out. They don't have any fancy mechanics, they are that platformer guy who just jumps and shoots.

But they are awesome.

Castlevania, Megaman, Super Mario Bros, Doom...The most simple games ever but they have so much care put into the level design that they turn out much better than other games with more interesting mechanics.

Other than the obvious, what other games do you think really shine because of level design and level design mainly?

[Opa Opa]

A lot of other cinematic platformers would fit the bill.

[emwearz]

Most of the games you listed were pretty revolutionary when released.

Super Mario Bros / Doom for technical reasons and Castlevania and Megaman brought heaps of new concepts and ideas to the table.

They may be 'simple' by today's standards, but were cutting edge when released (more so with SMB and DOOM).

[J T]

I love the Klonoa games for their level design. The bonus items are placed in ways to help you see the best path throughout the level. This allows you to play the game at a fast pace and execute tricky maneuvers involving jumps and rebounding off walls. The level design encourages a sense of flow in how you speed through the levels. This is what I wish the Sonic games did better. You can't really go the high speeds in Sonic until you've memorized the levels.

BIT.TRIP Runner has excellent and unique level design that is designed in such a way that the sound effects of your jumps when executed correctly will fall in sync with the ongoing music. This gives the game a highly rhythmic feel and you can use the sound effects to help you learn and memorize the courses. Really, without this audio sync it would be nearly impossible to play this difficult game at the level of precision that it requires.

Portal and Portal 2 also have some of the most ingenious level designs ever constructed. The overall games are designed to train you how to think with Portals and then to push your abilities farther and farther. If you listen to the developer commentary of Portal 2 you will find that they playtested the hell out of this game to makes sure that it was challenging without being frustratingly impossible. They used feedback from players to determine the best placing for each piece of the puzzle. It's almost an overuse of focus groups, but the end result is quite impressive. The levels are both fun to solve, and fun to perform, and you feel like a genius by the time you've completed the game.

Braid and Solomon's Key are two other puzzle games with masterfully crafted level design. Braid plays with its time bending mechanic in almost every way imaginable and designs the levels to take full advantage of it. Solomon's Key is structured so tightly, that there is often only one way to find your way out of a room and the level design of the room is itself the puzzle you have to solve.

Ikaruga takes its core idea of color swapping, and then designs entire levels around the mechanic. Early on in the game you discover that the color polarity gives you a distinct advantage. Later on, it becomes absolutely essential because you have no other choice but to flip colors to survive the onslaught of bullets. Once you are really good at the game, the color polarity mechanic allows you to 'chain' combos for increased score, which allows you to take yourself even farther with the game as it becomes more about gaining the high score. Once you realize this, you gain an increased appreciation for the level design because it is full of score challenges that require you to quickly alternate polarity to better improve your score.

I could go on, but those are some of the first ones that pop right to mind.

[DinnerX]

Adventure games are incredibly simple in design. You pick up items and use them later. Yet, companies have managed to make such a simple concept extremely entertaining.

Monkey Island is one of my favorites.

[Gamerforlife]

I always praise The Red Star's design. It's challenging but fair. It mixes things up in every stage with new mini-bosses, each with different bullet patters. Plus, it introduces new enemies every couple of stages, occasional environment hazards, changing camera perspectives, and different enemy combinations. The difficulty increases gradually from one stage to the next until the last few stages where they up the difficulty through the roof as they expect you to be prepared by then. I also love that the three playable characters are drastically different and require different tactics. It's one of the best designed games I've ever played

Crush has beautifully designed levels, each with a large puzzle to solve for story progression, as well as hidden items to find

Contra Shattered Soldier - Perfect level design. Once you learn the patterns and memorize certain things you can S rank each stage without too much trouble. I always have trouble towards the end of the game though

Day of the Tentacle - Probably my favorite Lucasarts adventure game. The puzzles are wonderfully clever and the game is hilarious

[jfrost]

Super Meat Boy.

Meat Boy is an ideal type Mario. You only run and jump, and you have extreme control over those actions. That's really all it has going for it. There's really no one playing for the Pokémon parody cutscene.

[Xeogred]

I think the first Unreal definitely fits the bill.

[J T]

Super Meat Boy.

Meat Boy is an ideal type Mario. You only run and jump, and you have extreme control over those actions. That's really all it has going for it. There's really no one playing for the Pokémon parody cutscene.

I agree with this. Every level is cleverly crafted so that you can only narrowly get through it and it forces you to do some damn near impossible maneuvers. It's also designed to make JT angry. MAKE JT WANT TO SMASH!!!

[swiftzx]

Super Meat Boy.

Meat Boy is an ideal type Mario. You only run and jump, and you have extreme control over those actions. That's really all it has going for it. There's really no one playing for the Pokémon parody cutscene.

I'm debating on getting this on Steam or 360...