Level Design Definition – Level design is a game development discipline that involves the creation of video game levels, locales, missions or stages, level design is both a technical and artistic process.
Level design is an extensive process that involves many specialisms in the games industry and it is a multilayered process that has many steps starting at blocking out so that you can get a basic idea of what you want to achieve with the layout of your level and get everything to the right scale and and end with adding final textures and models to the design.
There are a lot of aspects to consider when designing a level as every moment a player will experience when playing a game will have a had a level designer behind it crafting that experience, different genres of game will have different requirements of their level designs because the things that those genres levels want to achieve will be different meaning that level design is quite a specialized field that will need the collaboration of artists and programmers alike to craft a good player experience.
This is a collection of blockouts which is a concept in level design where you use basic primitive shapes to map out and get the scale of the level and this is very useful as you don’t need to wait on artist to complete the finished assets before you can begin to design and implement mechanics into a game level which gives the level designers more time to play and test with the design and layouts of the level, this moodboard is going to help me with when I come to blockout my own level design as it gives me an idea of the amount of detail I should include in the blockout.
Here I have a level design moodboard for textured levels this is when the artists have finished the designs of the objects that will be in the level and will replace your blocking out and may have even textured them its at this stage you get a real feel of how your level will look after the blocking out, and this is good as it then allows you to see if you got your scaling correct with the blocking out as well as how all the piece will look in your design after they have all been pieced together, I like how some of the models are completed and textured but this isn’t necessary for adding them into the scene.
This is a moodboard about environmental level design and more specifically what you will be thinking about when designing the environment, what is important when building the environment for your level is what you want to achieve with your setting so it is important to gather lots of research and reference when creating your environment so that you can create an experience for the player that can be immersive and believable. What I am taking from this moodboard is that researching the environment is incredibly important and that going forward when I come to research the aesthetic and environment for my level I should make sure to gather a broad range so that I can create a level that captivates the player.
How is level design used in games
Spawn points – Deciding on spawn points is an important part of level design for a multiplayer FPS game for example there’s lots of factors that you need to take into consideration such as where the points of engagement will be on the map so that you can position the spawns in places that won’t put the player in danger or like in the example image I have for defending and attacking teams you’ll need to to position the spawns in a way that gives the defending team an advantage around the objective
Power ups – Thinking about the placement of power ups, health pick ups or anything of the sort is a part of level design that has to be taken into consideration as with health packs for example they will need to be placed close to where the points of engagement will be on the map but far enough away that it will not be a contributing factor in the middle of a fight or like in the image above with power ups or weapon pick ups they create points on contention on a level which gives the designer the ability to choose where combat will take place in their level design
Level flow – This is a part of level design that it very important especially to single player games or rpgs as the level should flow in a way so that the player will naturally progressive through it without getting lost or not knowing where to go next, its a similar concept comic book artists will take in consideration when someone reads their art as it should flow in a way that the read will follow the images in the correct chronological order. As you can see in the image above there may be more than one way around the level however it flows in such a way that you will find your way to the end point giving the feeling of being able to explore even though its some what linear.
Level3GamesDevelopmentYear2LukeWadey 