Elements of game design, part seven: level design

All video games, whether you are playing the latest call of duty or the classic Pac man have had some form of level design to look and interact how they do. Although these examples give a completely different experience, the fundamentals of level design are visibly present in both. So how do you get the ball rolling, Ideas? Like every process it all starts with an idea. These ideas can be triggered from anywhere at any time, like reading a book visiting the shop and so on. All these ideas can be tailored to a design document if one has been set. It is useful to make note of your ideas to refer to as you go along. With all these amazing ideas you’ve come up with how do you chose the right one? Personally I think it depends on the person, what motivates you and how exciting you find that idea. If I’m not passionate about the idea I go with it reflects in my work and the final outcome is poor, that’s if I haven’t scrapped it half way through. Also, make sure the idea is manageable; don’t start something that you know you’re not going to finish. From this stage I would treat designing a level like any other visual design task, set some specifications, collect reference and concept some ideas. With levels, because they are playable a lot of other considerations have to be made. To get an insight into the process I had a look at how others went about designing a level. On world of level design, (http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/level_design_tutorials/how-to-plan-level-designs-game-environments-workflow.php) a level designer describes how objectives and obstacles are considered early in development. He or she looks at how objectives influence the path you would take through an environment and what obstacles they would need to overcome to progress through the level. This also influences focal points for example a well-designed and textured assets in the environment would want to be shown off therefore you could make this an obstacle or position this asset on route to an objective. A good example of this is the assassin’s creed franchise. The highly detailed architecture is used as a synchronization point so that you can view more of the map. 

An aspect of this level designers approach I thought would be useful is the use of a mind map decision tree. He or she briefly outlines objectives and obstacles and the knock on effect it has if the player choses to take this path. This seems an efficient and quick way of generating design ideas and asset placement. 

Another early consideration to make is the location and setting. This will often be defined by a brief. You would need to think about the time it’s set, past, present or future? The season or seasons it takes place in, maybe a specific time period like Edwardian times. This will help when it comes to collecting reference and stylizing concepts Another aspect that needs to be considered within design is the interactivity of playable areas. Defining what you can interact with makes a game like call of duty miles apart from a game like Pac man. All the fundamentals are still there in both, like style, map, objective, obstacles but being able to shoot a chain and a pile of well-placed rubble fall on an enemy is what gives a level depth and makes it more immersive. Hitman Absolution demonstrates an impressive level of interactivity in its levels because there are endless ways in which you can eliminate an enemy using the environment.

To get a feel for what you have designed so far, you could quickly prototype the level using standard primitives in a modelling program. Set up your designs to see whether you like the layout as it was planned. You can then make alterations if you feel aspects don’t work. 

 When all these considerations are planned and executed in visual development (the concept art), you have a strong base for modelling. A good example of a well-designed game is Assassins creed 3. 

You can clearly see the depth of planning and designing process the ubisoft team went to in order to make all aspects of the game true to the American civil war. As I feel many do, here’s some opinions that agree with my view on the games attention to detail. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2012/oct/31/assassins-creed-3-review and http://www.ign.com/blogs/blaze_fury/2012/11/12/assassins-creed-3-review