Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

Building Game Worlds
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U L T I M A T E G A M E D E S I G N
drawings or reference points for all they’re worth. Utilize your design document—it
helps immensely to know where you’re going. It seems simple, but it’s a challenge for
many game developers.
Building a game requires consistent forward momentum. If you don’t know where
you’re going, you probably aren’t going anywhere. For most level builders, it’s far
easier to start from sketches than to try to build up a level by holding it all in their
mind and “free-forming” it. Now, let’s take a look at what we should keep in mind as
we begin to build levels.
PLANNING YOUR LEVEL WORK
These days, the game world stakes are pretty high, and the bar of measure is seemingly
raised every day. Game worlds have to be built quickly and efficiently, and they
have to deliver maximum impact. With the advent of massively multiplayer online
games (MMOGs), entire new “world sections” or regions and updates must be created
and delivered to the player to continue, support, and enhance their gaming experience.
You’ll learn much more about these kinds of games in Chapter 8.
In the recent past, many games were constructed using tile-based systems. Tiles are
basically square 2-D “postage stamps” that link up or connect with each other along
one, two, three, or all four of their edges. The pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
By connecting many of these pieces in the intended way, you can build a game level.
Oddly enough, even though most titles are done in 3-D today, some of the same construction
principles apply. You might even say that, from a design standpoint, there
is a small renaissance of old ideas applied to new technology. If you think about it,
3-D environments often can be reduced to an assembly of various simple components
to form more complex ones.
The time that you commit up front to planning out your level and environmental
work will generally save you time at many points along the way in executing it.
Diving in to build “something” is usually both costly and inefficient.
Game development teams have several decisions to make in choosing software
tools for level building. Here are some of the choices:
� Build custom level tool functionality into a 3-D package like Maya
(www.aliaswavefront.com) or 3ds Max (www.discreet.com) using their
own script systems (Maya Embedded Language [MEL] or MAXScript,
respectively). You can build small- or large-scope level assembly and
editing parameters right into Max or Maya.
� Use a game development package solution like RenderWare
(www.renderware.com) and its Studio toolset.