Level design
Encyclopedia
Level design, environment design or game mapping is a discipline of game development
involving creation of video game level
s—locales, stages, or missions. This is commonly done using level editor
, a game development software
designed for building levels; however some games feature built-in level editing tools. Level design is both an artistic and technical process.
would create the maps and layouts for a game, and a discipline or profession dedicated solely to level design did not exist.
Early games often featured a level system of ascending difficulty as opposed to progression of story-line.
The first game genre that required significant amounts of time to design areas were text-based games, such as MUD
s. Often, promoted users were assigned to create new paths, new rooms, new equipment, and new actions, often using the game interface itself. ZZT
is another early game notable for its user-accessible mapping and event triggering/scripting
One of the first games that had an individual whose job was solely to design the levels was 1983's Lode Runner
, which was also one of the first titles to ship with a level editor.
Doom (1993) and Doom II
(1994) were two of the first games to attract focused game modding
activity, and many WAD level file
s were made for them. One of the reasons was a clear separation between the level files and game engine istself. Half-Life, Quake 3, and many other games have notable mapping tools and communities focusing on user-generated content
.
In certain games, such as roguelike
games, levels may be procedurally generated. In these cases, the original game programmer controls how the variations of rooms and tunnels are formed, by tweaking the randomly seeded
algorithms.
Level design for each individual level in a modern game typically starts with concept art, sketches, renderings, and physical models. Once completed, these concepts transform into extensive documentation, environment modelling, and the placing of game specific entities (actors), usually with the aid of a level editor.
A level editor may be distributed as a complete stand-alone package, at times, rivaling commercial 3D modelling software. There are various steps involved in laying out a map and these steps may vary dramatically across the many different game genres
that exist today.
General steps include:
Cut scenes may be triggered by events in a level, but require distinctly different skills, and may be created by a different person or team.
The Level Design Process may be iterated several times before achieving the desired outcome.
Level designers and/or concept artists may also be required to provide a pre-rendered map of the level (or entire game world) for the player.
A player might get stuck in map geometry with no way to escape or to die. A player might be able to find a specific spot where they do not have to move to gain experience
, because monsters are constantly spawned but can be immediately easily killed. In multiplayer maps, a player may be able to reach areas of the map designed to be inaccessible, for example, reaching an advantageous rooftop position and camping
other players. In the worst case, a player might be able to fall out-of-bounds of a map where other players cannot reach them.
In some cases, specific mapping tools can be designed to automatically detect problems such as falling "outside" a level, and reaching "stuck" areas. Careful level designers run these tools as the last step before releasing a new version of a level. In most cases, the best way to improve a map is by playtesting it with experienced players, and allowing them to try to exploit any problems.
s usually produce level editors and design tools for the designers to use. This eliminates the need for designers to access or modify game code
. As opposed to the level editing tools sometimes available to the community, level designers often work with placeholders and prototype
s aiming for level consistency and clear layout before required artwork is produced by game artists. Many level designers have skills as both a visual artist and game designers, although in recent years the responsibility for visual, structural and gameplay related tasks has been increasingly divided among several specialists.
, responsible for a great deal of the level design for Doom, and Richard "Levelord" Gray
, creator of a number of levels for Duke Nukem 3D
and SiN
.
experience, and sometimes, especially in story-based games, to advance the storyline. Skilled use of textures and audio is necessary to produce immersive player experience.
by not including any long hallways, while other maps may allow for a mix of sniping and closer combat.
Gimmick maps are sometimes created to explore selected features of gameplay, such as sniping or fist fighting. While they are briefly useful to level designers and interesting to experienced players, they are usually not included in final list of levels of the game because of their limited replay value.
Often the level layouts features power-up
s and items aligned in path and combinations that collecting them inevitably progresses the game and advances the story-line. This is one of the basic player direction technique and is most often seen in platformers.
Lighting and illumination, as well as distinctly coloured objects are often used to unambiguously steer the player towards the correct path. Similarly, clearly marked choke-points can be introduced.
Another method is strategic placement of obstacles and aesthetic environment props, that direct the player's attention to "clear" paths instead. This is often used in closed, "stuffed" environments.
Levels may be designed to force the players to explore the map and advance. Most RTS maps give each player a starting base, but will have resource distribution and terrain features designed to draw players out of their base and engage each other. Teamplay maps can provide noticeable advantages to one team over another, when designed poorly.
, where certain walls could be "pushed" to reveal hidden passages. For example, Quake has many secret areas that reward the player with ammo, weapons, quad damage powerups, and in one hard-to-reach secret area, Dopefish
makes an appearance. In fact, the hardest difficulty level, titled "Nightmare", is only reachable through a secret portal in the fourth dimension's entrance hall.
Sometimes, a whole level may be a designed to be a secret level.
. For this, specific compilers and converters of models, textures, and audio data may be required to lay out a level.
Some level editor
s for Windows games include Valve's Hammer Editor, Epic
's UnrealEd
, Leadwerks 3D World Studio
, BioWare
's Aurora Toolset
, id Software
's Q3Radiant, Unity 3D and Grome
outdoor editor. Multi engine, multi game editors include id Software's GtkRadiant
, based on Q3Radiant, and the open source QuArK
. Some games may have built-in level editors like Battlezone 2, Cube 2: Sauerbraten and Doom 3
. An example of a console game with a level editor is TimeSplitters
, developed by Free Radical Design
. Sometimes, professional 3D editing software
, such as 3D Studio Max
, Blender
, AutoCAD
, Lightwave
, Maya, Softimage XSI
or Grome
is used, usually customized with a special plugin developed for the specific game.
Game development
Game development is the software development process by which a video game is developed. Development is undertaken by a game developer, which may range from a single person to a large business. Mainstream games are normally funded by a publisher and take several years to develop. Indie games can...
involving creation of video game level
Level (computer and video games)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
s—locales, stages, or missions. This is commonly done using level editor
Level editor
A level editor is a software tool used to design levels, maps, campaigns, etc and virtual worlds for a video game. In some cases the creator of a video game releases an official level editor for a game, but other times the community of fans step in to fill the void...
, a game development software
Game development tool
A game development tool is a specialized software application that assists or facilitates the making of a computer or video game. Some tasks handled by tools include the conversion of assets into formats required by the game, level editing and script compilation.Almost all game development tools...
designed for building levels; however some games feature built-in level editing tools. Level design is both an artistic and technical process.
History
In early days of video games, a single programmerGame programmer
A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebase for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines all of which fall under the umbrella term of "game programmer"...
would create the maps and layouts for a game, and a discipline or profession dedicated solely to level design did not exist.
Early games often featured a level system of ascending difficulty as opposed to progression of story-line.
The first game genre that required significant amounts of time to design areas were text-based games, such as MUD
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
s. Often, promoted users were assigned to create new paths, new rooms, new equipment, and new actions, often using the game interface itself. ZZT
ZZT
ZZT is an ANSI character-based computer game, created in 1991 by Tim Sweeney of Epic Games , who later designed Unreal. It remains a popular DOS game creation system. ZZT itself is not an acronym for anything; its title was simply chosen so it would always appear at the very bottom of newsgroup...
is another early game notable for its user-accessible mapping and event triggering/scripting
One of the first games that had an individual whose job was solely to design the levels was 1983's Lode Runner
Lode Runner
Lode Runner is a 1983 platform game, first published by Brøderbund. It is one of the first games to include a level editor, a feature that allows players to create their own levels for the game. This feature bolstered the game's popularity, as magazines such as Computer Gaming World held contests...
, which was also one of the first titles to ship with a level editor.
Doom (1993) and Doom II
Doom II
Doom II: Hell on Earth is an award winning first-person shooter video game and second title of id Software's Doom franchise. Unlike Doom which was initially only available through shareware and mail order, Doom II was a commercial release sold in stores...
(1994) were two of the first games to attract focused game modding
Mod (computer gaming)
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
activity, and many WAD level file
Doom WAD
Doom WAD format is default format of package files for the video game Doom or its sequel Doom II, that are containing sprites, levels, and game data. WAD stands for Where's All the Data?...
s were made for them. One of the reasons was a clear separation between the level files and game engine istself. Half-Life, Quake 3, and many other games have notable mapping tools and communities focusing on user-generated content
User-generated content
User generated content covers a range of media content available in a range of modern communications technologies. It entered mainstream usage during 2005 having arisen in web publishing and new media content production circles...
.
In certain games, such as roguelike
Roguelike
The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many...
games, levels may be procedurally generated. In these cases, the original game programmer controls how the variations of rooms and tunnels are formed, by tweaking the randomly seeded
Random seed
A random seed is a number used to initialize a pseudorandom number generator.The choice of a good random seed is crucial in the field of computer security...
algorithms.
Process
A level editor may be distributed as a complete stand-alone package, at times, rivaling commercial 3D modelling software. There are various steps involved in laying out a map and these steps may vary dramatically across the many different game genres
Computer and video game genres
Video game genres are used to categorize video games based on their gameplay interaction rather than visual or narrative differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges. They are classified independent of their setting or game-world content, unlike other works of fiction...
that exist today.
General steps include:
- Laying out the large-scale features of the map, such as hills, cities, rooms, tunnels, etc., for players and enemies to move around in;
- Determining environmental conditions and "ground rules" such as day/night, weather, scoring systems, allowable weapons or gameplay types, time limits, and starting resources.
- Specifying certain regions where certain gameplay activities or behaviors occur, such as resource harvesting, base building, water travelling, etc.;
- Specifying non-static parts of a level, such as doors, keys and buttons with associated mechanisms, teleporters, hidden passageways, etc.;
- Specifying locations of various entities, such as player units, enemies, monster spawn points, ladders, coins, resource nodes, weapons, save points, etc.;
- Specifying the start and exit locations for one or more players;
- Adding aesthetic details such as level-specific graphic texturesTexture mappingTexture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
, sounds, animation, lighting and music; - Introducing scriptedScripting languageA scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...
event locations, where certain actions by the player can trigger specified changes; - Placing pathfindingPathfindingPathfinding generally refers to the plotting, by a computer application, of the shortest route between two points. It is a more practical variant on solving mazes...
nodes that non-player characterMob (computer gaming)A mob, mobile or monster is a computer-controlled non-player character in a computer game such as an MMORPG or MUD. Depending on context, all such characters in a game may be considered "mobs", or usage may be limited to hostile NPCs and/or NPCs vulnerable to attack.-Purpose of mobs:Defeating...
s take as they walk around, the actions they will take in response to specific triggers, and any dialog they might have with the player.
Cut scenes may be triggered by events in a level, but require distinctly different skills, and may be created by a different person or team.
The Level Design Process may be iterated several times before achieving the desired outcome.
Level designers and/or concept artists may also be required to provide a pre-rendered map of the level (or entire game world) for the player.
Level bugs
There are many map bugs that level designers try to avoid, but sometimes go unnoticed for some time.A player might get stuck in map geometry with no way to escape or to die. A player might be able to find a specific spot where they do not have to move to gain experience
Experience point
An experience point is a unit of measurement used in many role-playing games and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's progression through the game...
, because monsters are constantly spawned but can be immediately easily killed. In multiplayer maps, a player may be able to reach areas of the map designed to be inaccessible, for example, reaching an advantageous rooftop position and camping
Camping (computer gaming)
In video gaming, camping is a tactic in which a player will obtain a strategic position anywhere on the map and wait for characters to arrive and be killed, or waiting for useful objects to appear in an area rather than actively seeking them out....
other players. In the worst case, a player might be able to fall out-of-bounds of a map where other players cannot reach them.
In some cases, specific mapping tools can be designed to automatically detect problems such as falling "outside" a level, and reaching "stuck" areas. Careful level designers run these tools as the last step before releasing a new version of a level. In most cases, the best way to improve a map is by playtesting it with experienced players, and allowing them to try to exploit any problems.
Level designer
A level designer is a game designer who creates environments and scenarios using a level editor and other tools. Level designers will usually work on a level from pre-production to completion; working with both incomplete and complete versions of the game. Game programmerGame programmer
A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebase for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines all of which fall under the umbrella term of "game programmer"...
s usually produce level editors and design tools for the designers to use. This eliminates the need for designers to access or modify game code
Codebase
The term codebase, or code base, is used in software development to mean the whole collection of source code used to build a particular application or component. Typically, the codebase includes only human-written source code files, and not, e.g., source code files generated by other tools or...
. As opposed to the level editing tools sometimes available to the community, level designers often work with placeholders and prototype
Software prototyping
*Software prototyping, refers to the activity of creating prototypes of software applications, i.e., incomplete versions of the software program being developed...
s aiming for level consistency and clear layout before required artwork is produced by game artists. Many level designers have skills as both a visual artist and game designers, although in recent years the responsibility for visual, structural and gameplay related tasks has been increasingly divided among several specialists.
Notable level designers
A number of individuals have made significant contributions to the field of PC first person shooter levels. These level designers include: John RomeroJohn Romero
Alfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and was a designer for many of their games, including Wolfenstein 3D, Dangerous Dave, Doom and Quake...
, responsible for a great deal of the level design for Doom, and Richard "Levelord" Gray
Richard Gray (game designer)
Richard "The Levelord" Gray is a video game designer who is best known for designing levels for 3D video games. His most famous works are perhaps the levels for Duke Nukem 3D, and SiN...
, creator of a number of levels for Duke Nukem 3D
Duke Nukem 3D
Duke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter computer game developed by 3D Realms and published by GT Interactive Software. The full version was released for the PC . It is a sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II published by Apogee...
and SiN
SiN
SiN is a computer game first-person shooter based on a modified version of the Quake II engine developed by Ritual Entertainment and published by Activision in late 1998...
.
Design goals
Level design is necessary for two primary purposes - providing players with a goal and providing players with enjoyable play experience. Good level design strives to produce quality gameplay, provide an immersiveImmersion (virtual reality)
Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersant's awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment; often artificial. This mental state is frequently accompanied with spatial excess, intense focus, a distorted sense of time, and...
experience, and sometimes, especially in story-based games, to advance the storyline. Skilled use of textures and audio is necessary to produce immersive player experience.
Gameplay alteration
Maps' design can significantly impact the gameplay. For example, the gameplay may be shifted towards a platformer (by careful placement of platforms) or a puzzle game (by extensive use of buttons, keys, and doors). Some FPS maps may be designed to prevent snipingSniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
by not including any long hallways, while other maps may allow for a mix of sniping and closer combat.
Gimmick maps are sometimes created to explore selected features of gameplay, such as sniping or fist fighting. While they are briefly useful to level designers and interesting to experienced players, they are usually not included in final list of levels of the game because of their limited replay value.
Player directing
Levels are generally constructed with flow control in mind, that is directing the player towards the goal of the level and preventing confusion and idling. This can be accomplished by various means.Often the level layouts features power-up
Power-up
In computer and video games, power-ups are objects that instantly benefit or add extra abilities to the game character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a benefit and can be used at a time chosen by the player...
s and items aligned in path and combinations that collecting them inevitably progresses the game and advances the story-line. This is one of the basic player direction technique and is most often seen in platformers.
Lighting and illumination, as well as distinctly coloured objects are often used to unambiguously steer the player towards the correct path. Similarly, clearly marked choke-points can be introduced.
Another method is strategic placement of obstacles and aesthetic environment props, that direct the player's attention to "clear" paths instead. This is often used in closed, "stuffed" environments.
Levels may be designed to force the players to explore the map and advance. Most RTS maps give each player a starting base, but will have resource distribution and terrain features designed to draw players out of their base and engage each other. Teamplay maps can provide noticeable advantages to one team over another, when designed poorly.
Hidden features
Level designers sometimes create hidden rooms and areas that usually require more tries to reach or to notice. These usually give some additional rewards, such as ammo or powerups. Casual players usually do not discover these, but these areas are interesting enough to be discovered and documented by dedicated gamers. Sometimes, they serve as easter eggs, containing messages such as the level designers' names or pictures, or political or humorous messages. One of the first games with a 3D engine to feature hidden features was Wolfenstein 3DWolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded by critics and gaming journalists as having both popularized the first-person shooter genre on the PC and created the basic archetype upon which all subsequent games of the same genre would be built. It was created by id Software and...
, where certain walls could be "pushed" to reveal hidden passages. For example, Quake has many secret areas that reward the player with ammo, weapons, quad damage powerups, and in one hard-to-reach secret area, Dopefish
Dopefish
The Dopefish is a fictional fish that originated in the fourth Commander Keen video game, Secret of the Oracle, released in 1991. The character has since evolved into a PC game industry in-joke, making appearances in games from Apogee's 1994 Wacky Wheels as well as titles as recent as the 2006 SiN...
makes an appearance. In fact, the hardest difficulty level, titled "Nightmare", is only reachable through a secret portal in the fourth dimension's entrance hall.
Sometimes, a whole level may be a designed to be a secret level.
Tools
A wide variety of tools may be used by someone designing a level. Although it is faster to design models and textures with general purpose multimedia creation tools, games usually require the data to be in a unique format suited for that game's engineGame engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
. For this, specific compilers and converters of models, textures, and audio data may be required to lay out a level.
Some level editor
Level editor
A level editor is a software tool used to design levels, maps, campaigns, etc and virtual worlds for a video game. In some cases the creator of a video game releases an official level editor for a game, but other times the community of fans step in to fill the void...
s for Windows games include Valve's Hammer Editor, Epic
Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc., also known as Epic and formerly Epic MegaGames, is an American video game development company based in Cary, North Carolina. Its most recent success has been the Gears of War series of games, although it is also known for its Unreal Engine technology. It is the parent company of...
's UnrealEd
UnrealEd
UnrealEd is the level editor used to create levels for Unreal. It was also used for other games based on the Unreal engine, such as Deus Ex and Lineage II, although it has changed along with the engine for later games...
, Leadwerks 3D World Studio
3D World Studio
3D World Studio is a map/level editor for use with Torque Game Engine, DarkBasic Pro, Leadwerks Engine and Blitz3D. The program is developed by Leadwerks Software and is distributed by both Leadwerks Software and The Game Creators in a Standard Edition and a Builder Edition.Both editions include...
, BioWare
BioWare
BioWare is a Canadian video game developer founded in February 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip. BioWare is currently owned by American company Electronic Arts...
's Aurora Toolset
Aurora toolset
The Aurora toolset is a set of software tools developed by BioWare for use with the Aurora Engine, the game engine first used in BioWare's 2002 computer role-playing game Neverwinter Nights...
, id Software
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
's Q3Radiant, Unity 3D and Grome
Grome
Grome is an environmental modeling package developed by Quad Software dedicated for procedural and manual generation of large virtual outdoor worlds suitable for games and other 3D real-time simulation applications.- History :...
outdoor editor. Multi engine, multi game editors include id Software's GtkRadiant
GtkRadiant
GtkRadiant is a level design program developed by id Software and Loki Software. It is used to create maps for a number of video games. It is maintained by id Software together with a number of volunteers.-History:...
, based on Q3Radiant, and the open source QuArK
Quake Army Knife
QuArK , is a free and open source program for developing 3D assets for a large variety of video games, mostly first-person shooters using engines similar to or based on the Quake engine by id Software...
. Some games may have built-in level editors like Battlezone 2, Cube 2: Sauerbraten and Doom 3
Doom 3
Doom 3 is a science fiction horror video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. An example of the first-person shooter genre, Doom 3 was first released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004. The game was later adapted for Linux, as well as being ported by Aspyr Media for Mac...
. An example of a console game with a level editor is TimeSplitters
TimeSplitters
TimeSplitters is a series of first-person shooter video games created by Free Radical Design. The games are often compared to Rare's shooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark since Free Radical Design was founded by a group of ex-Rare employees who developed these games...
, developed by Free Radical Design
Free Radical Design
Crytek UK, formerly known as Free Radical Design, is a video game developer based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, probably best known for Second Sight and the TimeSplitters series. After going into financial administration, it was announced on February 4 2009 that the studio had been acquired by...
. Sometimes, professional 3D editing software
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
, such as 3D Studio Max
3D Studio Max
Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio MAX, is for making 3D animations. It was developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capabilities, a flexible plugin architecture and can be used on the Microsoft Windows platform. It's frequently used by video game developers, TV...
, Blender
Blender (software)
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. The current release version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011...
, AutoCAD
AutoCAD
AutoCAD is a software application for computer-aided design and drafting in both 2D and 3D. It is developed and sold by Autodesk, Inc. First released in December 1982, AutoCAD was one of the first CAD programs to run on personal computers, notably the IBM PC...
, Lightwave
LightWave
LightWave 3D is a high end computer graphics program developed by NewTek. The latest release of LightWave runs on Windows and Mac OS X.- Overview:...
, Maya, Softimage XSI
Softimage XSI
Autodesk Softimage, or simply Softimage is a 3D computer graphics application, owned by Autodesk, for producing 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling, and computer animation...
or Grome
Grome
Grome is an environmental modeling package developed by Quad Software dedicated for procedural and manual generation of large virtual outdoor worlds suitable for games and other 3D real-time simulation applications.- History :...
is used, usually customized with a special plugin developed for the specific game.
See also
- Level editorLevel editorA level editor is a software tool used to design levels, maps, campaigns, etc and virtual worlds for a video game. In some cases the creator of a video game releases an official level editor for a game, but other times the community of fans step in to fill the void...
and List of level editors - Game developmentGame developmentGame development is the software development process by which a video game is developed. Development is undertaken by a game developer, which may range from a single person to a large business. Mainstream games are normally funded by a publisher and take several years to develop. Indie games can...
- Game designGame designGame design, a subset of game development, is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters during production stage. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as...
- List of gaming topics