The concept of linearity in video games is an oft-misused term, partly caused by a rise in sandbox-style games and role-playing games which utilize open-endedness as an important aspect of their design. Pure linearity is commonly seen as something to avoid in most genres, and the differences between judging the quality of a linear game and judging the quality of an open-ended game are muddled among many players, who fail to understand the differences.
Of course, either end of the spectrum can be detrimental to a game if implemented in a confusing way (for open-endedness) or in a way that railroads the player into barely needing to do anything (for linearity). Not only is deciding whether to be linear or open important, but finding a way to use a game's linearity or open-endedness to its benefit is perhaps even more important.
The sheer amount of difference between these two design philosophies is easily compared to Super Mario Bros and the original Legend of Zelda, as Miyamoto has stated that both games were designed to be opposites of one another: SMB was designed to be a linear adventure while Zelda was meant to be very open to let the player do as they wished. These concepts were taken to their fullest in each game, both to their benefit and to their detriment.
Take SMB's linearity, for example.
![Posted Image]()
You gotta get from the leftmost part of the level to the flagpole at the rightmost part of the level. So simple it only took a sentence.
In Super Mario Bros, your goal is to get from the beginning of a level to the flagpole at the end. In between are a number of various obstacles and enemies that need to be avoided or surmounted in order to progress. Unlike Zelda, there is little freedom in terms of the order of going through the levels, save for the hidden Warp Zones you can find in certain levels. If you want to complete the game without Warp Zones, you will have to become skilled enough to get through World 1, World 2, and so on and so forth, within the time limit you're given in each level.
This benefits the game because of its straightforwardness. You can't go backwards, you can only keep moving, and you can't turn back the timer, which makes it very simple to learn. There's no need to wander around a level, nor is there any sense of not knowing what you're supposed to do. You have to get from Point A to Point B, and that's all there is to the game. It's easy to pick up and play.
However, this is also detrimental to the game (depending on your point of view) because it means the player is essentially forced to become skilled enough at the game to get through the later levels. Depending on how easily the player is able to pick up the nuances of the platforming, it may take them a short time or a long time to be able to finish the game. However, the inclusion of the aforementioned Warp Zones does alleviate this somewhat, allowing for players to potentially skip troublesome areas.
Legend of Zelda, on the other hand, is open-endedness to a surprising extreme.
![Posted Image]()
Assuming a player is skilled enough at the game, the two screens with pink dots are possibly the only overworld screens that absolutely require an item (the Raft) to visit. Try telling that to a complete newcomer, and then ask them where they think the first dungeon is!
Zelda 1's goal is stated clearly in the introductory text crawl: you are Link, you have to find the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom, and then you need to defeat Ganon and save Princess Zelda. However, when the player begins the game, they're plopped down into an area in the south of the map, and that's all the game does for you. When the game was first released many years ago, this was an incredible draw for people. Many games at the time focused on using a linear setup ala Super Mario Bros, so having a game where the player could just wander around to discover things was an engaging concept for players. To an extent, this still occurs even today, with many videogame players being more and more drawn to open-ended games because of the feeling of “doing what you want to”.
The reason Zelda benefited from its open-endedness was because of that ability to just do as you pleased. The area you started off in had a cave, which would naturally draw people to go inside and obtain the Wooden Sword, but if a player had beaten Zelda a few times, they had the ability to skip getting the Wooden Sword entirely if they wanted. In fact, it is entirely possible to play the original Zelda without getting any sword at all.
However, Zelda's open-endedness comes at the price of making it into a very confusing game for new players, since newcomers are given no particular direction. While being given totally free reign is nice, it also means that there's no easy way to find out what to do next other than bumbling around. Some people refer to this conundrum as a “where-the-fuck-do-I-go-kind-of-game”, and it's a rather fitting moniker. New players are generally drawn to the cave with the Wooden Sword, of course, but after that they have no idea what to do next. This means that it's up to the player to choose what to do next, which can be a little too open for many people.
Zelda 1 does have some design choices that help to keep players on track through the game, of course – players can't access areas across water or across one-tile-wide gaps without the Raft or Stepladder, so said items obviously have to be found in areas you can get to without them. But most of the time, this simply isn't enough guidance for a greenhorn. Even then, it's easy for players, new or old, to end up lost and wandering around, trying to remember where they need to go next.
Perhaps most importantly about both games is that having to critique each one is much different from the other. In games like Zelda, where exploration is king, not knowing what to do or where to go is annoying, but understandable and perhaps even appealing in some vein. If you don't know where you're supposed to be going in a linear game like Mario, then something is deeply flawed with the game's level design, or its concepts as a whole.
Similarly, if a game utilizes open-endedness or exploration in its gameplay, it's important to make sure that the player can't back themselves into a corner and find themselves unable to complete the game because they did things “out-of-order”. There is leeway in this respect, as you can make the alternate orders self-contained and keep the beginning and end of the game the same, but it is still important to keep things flexible. How to do this can range from checking for glitches caused by doing things in one way or another, to avoiding certain types of level designs outright.
![Posted Image]()
For a game that's mostly-linear but involves exploring buildings and other complicated structures, there's something decidedly blatant about slapping a straight line in front of the player during the lategame.
With all that said, here are some things to keep in mind when brainstorming linearity and open-endedness in regards to designing a videogame:
Of course, either end of the spectrum can be detrimental to a game if implemented in a confusing way (for open-endedness) or in a way that railroads the player into barely needing to do anything (for linearity). Not only is deciding whether to be linear or open important, but finding a way to use a game's linearity or open-endedness to its benefit is perhaps even more important.
The sheer amount of difference between these two design philosophies is easily compared to Super Mario Bros and the original Legend of Zelda, as Miyamoto has stated that both games were designed to be opposites of one another: SMB was designed to be a linear adventure while Zelda was meant to be very open to let the player do as they wished. These concepts were taken to their fullest in each game, both to their benefit and to their detriment.
Take SMB's linearity, for example.
You gotta get from the leftmost part of the level to the flagpole at the rightmost part of the level. So simple it only took a sentence.
In Super Mario Bros, your goal is to get from the beginning of a level to the flagpole at the end. In between are a number of various obstacles and enemies that need to be avoided or surmounted in order to progress. Unlike Zelda, there is little freedom in terms of the order of going through the levels, save for the hidden Warp Zones you can find in certain levels. If you want to complete the game without Warp Zones, you will have to become skilled enough to get through World 1, World 2, and so on and so forth, within the time limit you're given in each level.
This benefits the game because of its straightforwardness. You can't go backwards, you can only keep moving, and you can't turn back the timer, which makes it very simple to learn. There's no need to wander around a level, nor is there any sense of not knowing what you're supposed to do. You have to get from Point A to Point B, and that's all there is to the game. It's easy to pick up and play.
However, this is also detrimental to the game (depending on your point of view) because it means the player is essentially forced to become skilled enough at the game to get through the later levels. Depending on how easily the player is able to pick up the nuances of the platforming, it may take them a short time or a long time to be able to finish the game. However, the inclusion of the aforementioned Warp Zones does alleviate this somewhat, allowing for players to potentially skip troublesome areas.
Legend of Zelda, on the other hand, is open-endedness to a surprising extreme.
Assuming a player is skilled enough at the game, the two screens with pink dots are possibly the only overworld screens that absolutely require an item (the Raft) to visit. Try telling that to a complete newcomer, and then ask them where they think the first dungeon is!
Zelda 1's goal is stated clearly in the introductory text crawl: you are Link, you have to find the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom, and then you need to defeat Ganon and save Princess Zelda. However, when the player begins the game, they're plopped down into an area in the south of the map, and that's all the game does for you. When the game was first released many years ago, this was an incredible draw for people. Many games at the time focused on using a linear setup ala Super Mario Bros, so having a game where the player could just wander around to discover things was an engaging concept for players. To an extent, this still occurs even today, with many videogame players being more and more drawn to open-ended games because of the feeling of “doing what you want to”.
The reason Zelda benefited from its open-endedness was because of that ability to just do as you pleased. The area you started off in had a cave, which would naturally draw people to go inside and obtain the Wooden Sword, but if a player had beaten Zelda a few times, they had the ability to skip getting the Wooden Sword entirely if they wanted. In fact, it is entirely possible to play the original Zelda without getting any sword at all.
However, Zelda's open-endedness comes at the price of making it into a very confusing game for new players, since newcomers are given no particular direction. While being given totally free reign is nice, it also means that there's no easy way to find out what to do next other than bumbling around. Some people refer to this conundrum as a “where-the-fuck-do-I-go-kind-of-game”, and it's a rather fitting moniker. New players are generally drawn to the cave with the Wooden Sword, of course, but after that they have no idea what to do next. This means that it's up to the player to choose what to do next, which can be a little too open for many people.
Zelda 1 does have some design choices that help to keep players on track through the game, of course – players can't access areas across water or across one-tile-wide gaps without the Raft or Stepladder, so said items obviously have to be found in areas you can get to without them. But most of the time, this simply isn't enough guidance for a greenhorn. Even then, it's easy for players, new or old, to end up lost and wandering around, trying to remember where they need to go next.
Perhaps most importantly about both games is that having to critique each one is much different from the other. In games like Zelda, where exploration is king, not knowing what to do or where to go is annoying, but understandable and perhaps even appealing in some vein. If you don't know where you're supposed to be going in a linear game like Mario, then something is deeply flawed with the game's level design, or its concepts as a whole.
Similarly, if a game utilizes open-endedness or exploration in its gameplay, it's important to make sure that the player can't back themselves into a corner and find themselves unable to complete the game because they did things “out-of-order”. There is leeway in this respect, as you can make the alternate orders self-contained and keep the beginning and end of the game the same, but it is still important to keep things flexible. How to do this can range from checking for glitches caused by doing things in one way or another, to avoiding certain types of level designs outright.
For a game that's mostly-linear but involves exploring buildings and other complicated structures, there's something decidedly blatant about slapping a straight line in front of the player during the lategame.
With all that said, here are some things to keep in mind when brainstorming linearity and open-endedness in regards to designing a videogame:
- What is the basic concept for the game you want to make? A game where a player explores a castle to save a princess can go either way. It can be an open-ended game where the player can explore the castle at their leisure, or it can be a linear game where the player treks through the castle level by level. Which way do you want your game to go?
- If you want your game to be open-ended, how big do you want it to be? Giving a player more and more world to explore means that you also create more and more potential for doing things out-of-order. Always keep in mind the multiple ways a player can play your game, and try your best to iron out bugs or glitches that may result from doing things in one way or another way.
- If you want your game to be linear, how should you design the levels so that they aren't tedious or confusing to players? How will you make it clear that the player needs to get from Point A to Point B? Perhaps certain stretches of level will be interrupted by a checkpoint that leads closer to the goal; how will you make these checkpoints stand out in such a way that makes players understand that “this is where I need to go”?