Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

you just saw in your mind blends into your level, arena, or playfield. See it right there
on the big screen in your mind!
As you develop this ability, you’ll be able to “move a camera” around in your mind,
even view your levels at different strata sometimes. Believe me, it’s okay if it seems
hard at first. Trying to think in 3-D is hard for many of us (2-D was hard enough). I
think you’ll find this mental projection technique, for lack of a better term, very useful
in “seeing” game mechanics and in “seeing” your levels. As you build up this ability,
you will probably be able to “see more” at once than when you began. You’ll see
how the combat system details will work, or what might make for an odd, loveable,
miniature golf course set along the spine of a whale—and most importantly, why it
works for the game.
The Early Evolution of Levels
C H A P T E R 2
When I speak of “levels,” for the moment, I mean everything from a 2-D platform
shooter with a boss at the far right end to a fully robust 3-D first- or third-person level.
In this context, I’m even talking about maps and missions for RTS and RPG titles.
Levels, maps, and missions start as concepts that aim to service an over-arching game
vision. Conceptually, perhaps we are trying to re-create something historical, like a section
of World War II’s Battle of the Bulge. Maybe our level is simply driven by a twitch
mechanic or fast-action mechanic. Our task is to try to build levels that support this fact
in the best way possible, in the most interesting and challenging way possible.
I’ve mentioned and recommended the importance of planning. We have to know
where we’re going. In game development, however, getting there is a process of evolution.
It would be nice to have the guarantee that we could simply execute the plans
for a given level in a game exactly as conceived. It rarely seems to happen this way.
Don’t get me wrong, we still need every bit of our planning and concepts. Yet, game
fundamentals spring out and make themselves apparent in a number of ways. Levels,
as game components, evolve too—in a number of ways.
Technology forces shape design and establish the limits. As a design team, you
can’t do what the code won’t. As a design team operating in a production environment,
you can’t do what you can’t afford from a pure resources standpoint. There
might be great “game support reasons” for implementing a certain ability or feature.
The reality is that it might not make it due to technology limits, unmanageable frustrations,
experience issues, or a number of other factors.
Levels evolve in two important ways. First, they sometimes evolve according to
your game vision. This is the best possible case. They evolve the way you had hoped
they would, given enough refinement. You test and reject or test and alter game ideas,
based on pure technology support. Second, they evolve in ways you would not choose,
in ways you would prefer they didn’t. In these cases, you are sometimes not able to accomplish
the kind of specific gameplay you seek due to soft factors like software tool
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Level Planning and Building