Week 2 - First Lesson for the Semester! - 2/2/15

Welcome to the first post for the semester. This blog will consist of work given to us students in class and anything our teacher wants answered to be marked will be posted regularly here.
In our first lesson for the semester we were asked to answer some question regarding game level design. Here are the questions and answers below:



Question: What is a level?

A level is a total space of a game where a player has to navigate puzzles and challenges to achieve a goal.

Question: What is the role of a level designer?

A level designer is the person who puts the different aspects of the game together. They are in charge of creating the levels out of the art, models, scripts and ideas that are created by other members of the creative team.

Question: How has level design evolved throughout history?

Level design has been greatly improved throughout the years with the advancement of technology. When the first games were originally created they only contained one level and 2 Dimensional pixel art based, whereas nowadays with the significant advancement of processing power and development of gaming consoles, levels in games are much more complex, with incredibly descriptive storylines, intriguing puzzles and crystal clear 3 Dimensional graphics.

Question: How are game platforms related to level design?

Game platforms are related to game and level design in that they provide limitations into how detailed and descriptive each game level can be. When games were first invented, the processing power and size capabilities of machines was very small and limited, so only basic games could be created. However nowadays with the advancement knowledge and technology and the creation of powerful game consoles such as the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, game levels can be made to be much more detailed and aesthetically appealing.

Question: How are game genres related to level design?

Game genres affect the development of game levels significantly. They are the main inspiration as to how a game level is designed and created. A game with a war based genre will affect the design of a game level in that it will have linear storyline, with an objective at the end of the level and the player having to shoot their way to the that objective, whereas a game with a technical and strategic genre will have a level that is based upon solving a certain puzzle or algorithm to make it to the objective at the end, and a game with a sports genre will involve the player playing matches to achieve the goal of victory.

Question: Imagine that you are a level designer working in the 1980s. Knowing the limitations associated with this era, what type of game would you develop?

If I was a level designer working in the 1980’s, I would develop a game that was based around a set of levels that would progressively get harder in order to achieve a high score. It would have simple pixel art graphics in order to keep memory low which would make the game run smoother.

Question: Play three games—one from the 1980s, one from the 1990s, and one released after 2004. Compare and contrast how levels and environments are designed in all three games.

The three games that I have selected to play are Pac-Man (1980), Mario Kart 64 (1996) and Destiny (2014). These games were all designed in different eras when knowledge in the limitations and boundaries of technology were expanding, allowing for better games to be made. The levels and environments of each game are significantly more advanced and aesthetically appealing the later the game was developed. Pac-Man has an environment in which the game is drawn in 2D, on a black background with small white dots and blue borders, which enabled low memory requirements which were the limitations of the technology back in the 1980’s. Their levels consisted of the same layout, with difficulty advancing the more levels are completed, with the goal to eat all the small white dots and avoid being killed by the monsters that followed you through the maze. Mario Kart 64 enabled a simple 3D environment through the use of 2D sprite images layered to give the environment a sense of depth. The characters in the game have been drawn so that they look 3D but are just flat images, with the borders of the images jagged from the simple pixel art. Each level consisted of a different track layout and setting, with the goal to win races and claim victory in each tournament, and with the increase in size capabilities of PC’s and gaming consoles this was achieved successfully. With the further advancement in technology and design as the years progressed we have games such as Destiny which are crystal clear, full Three-Dimensional environments in which every location looks extremely realistic, with perfect smoothness on all the models in the game due to gaming consoles and PC’s being able to process the large sizes of memory that modern games take up. The environments of Destiny consist of planets Earth, Mars and Venus, as well as the Moon. There are many levels within Destiny, each with a different goal and different paths through the different environments that exist to make up the game to achieve the overall goal of completion.

Question: How does a game’s genre affect the way its levels and environments are designed? Choose one level from three different games—each from a distinct primary genre—and compare how these levels are designed with regard to setting, goals, puzzles, and risk–reward system.

A game’s genre affects the way a level is designed in very similar ways, but the environment will be designed differently. Three games in which this can be shown are Destiny, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Killzone: Shadow Fall. These three games have the same primary genre, first person shooters, and can show that the level design is the relatively the same, while the environments are designed differently. In all three games, it is the requirement of the player to achieve the level goal via following a set route, which may involve puzzles and strategic thinking, and shooting and eliminating enemies along the route to the objective. This final goal may be different in each game, but the way a level is set out in each game is relatively the same. The environments for each game, however, are completely different from each other. Destiny is set amongst planets Earth, Mars and Venus as well as the Moon, in which there are civilised establishments built on each planet. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is set on Earth around the years 2059 – 2065, and shows a futuristic Earth with many similarities to our cities today. Killzone: Shadow Fall is set amongst foreign planets that are pose similarities to Earth but are different in many aspects. The environments vary amongst each game, but the level layout is very much similar to each other due to the genre of the game.