Article gets the perspective completely wrong. A space has meaning because a mind interacts with it. If you see the player as the only mind in a single-player g

Article gets the perspective completely wrong. A space has meaning because a mind interacts with it. If you see the player as the only mind in a single-player game, then go make design hurdles and obstacles like an olympic sport. But videogames can have fake AI minds. If you design a room from the perspective of a dog that needs to maximize it's needs/wants/goals/skill/desire, from the perspective of it's mind, then designing terrain so that the dog can pursue those goals in a way that is fun for the player and for "the dog" is much more intuitive. The only conflict you need to focus on is the intersection between the dog's goals and the player's story-line through the world. Presuming your game is based on combat, then designing the space so the dog can maximize (or just play) with it's abilities and perceptions in a fight and making the room play in fun way becomes more straight forward. You look at the room you are building from the perspective of 4 paws on the floor and build a nice overhang or a cheekily placed box so that when the dog breaks it's normal goals to pursue the player, the most common response from the player (look at it, or whatever) will be intersected or guided by a fun piece of world matter. There is nearly no meaning in his world, it exists only to express the skill of playing a game with no minds, so an emphasis on map control and resources control becomes more important than interacting with a meaningful behaviour the game actors produce.