Level (video games)
In video games, a level is any space available to the player during the course of completion of an objective. Video game levels generally have progressively increasing difficulty to appeal to players with different skill levels. Each level may present new concepts and challenges to keep a player's interest high to play for a long time.
In games with linear progression, levels can represent areas of a larger world, such as Green Hill Zone from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Games may also feature interconnected levels, representing locations. Although the challenge in a game is often to defeat some sort of character, levels are sometimes designed with a movement challenge, such as a jumping puzzle, a form of obstacle course. Players must judge the distance between platforms or ledges and safely jump between them to reach the next area. These puzzles can slow the momentum down for players of fast action games; the first Half-Life
Level design
Level design or environment design, is a discipline of game development involving the making of video game levels—locales, stages or missions. This is commonly done using a level editor, a game development software designed for building levels; however, some games feature built-in level editing tools.History
In the early days of video games, a single programmer would develop 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 storyline. An example of the former approach is the arcade shoot 'em up game Space Invaders, where each level looks the same, repeating endlessly until the player loses all their lives. An example of the latter approach is the arcade platform game Donkey Kong, which uses multiple distinct levels to progress a storyline; as Mario tries to rescue Pauline from Donkey Kong, each level ends with Kong fleeing with Pauline and then Mario having to complete a different level each time, until he finally confronts Kong.1983's Lode Runner was one of the first titles to ship with a level editor. Its designer, Doug Smith, reputedly paid neighborhood children to design levels for the game. The same year, the multiplayer dungeon crawl Dandy was released, and it also shipped with a level editor which was documented in the manual. ZZT is a later game with user-accessible mapping and scripting.
A game genre that required significant amounts of time to design areas were text-based games, such as MUDs. Often, promoted users were assigned to make new paths, new rooms, new equipment, and new actions, often using the game interface itself.
File:Nexuiz screenshot 05.jpg|thumb|In games with 3D computer graphics like Nexuiz, the levels are designed as three-dimensional spaces.
3D first-person shooters Doom and Doom II were two of the first games to attract focused game modding activity, and many WAD level files were made for them. One of the reasons was a clear separation between the level files and game engine itself. Half-Life, Quake 3, and many other games have notable mapping tools and communities focusing on user-generated content.
Process
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 modeling, and the placing of game specific entities, 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 as of the 2020s.
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 textures, sounds, animation, lighting and music;
- Introducing scripted event locations, where certain actions by the player can trigger specified changes;
- Placing pathfinding nodes that non-player characters 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 produced by a different person or team.
The level design process may be iterated several times before achieving the desired outcome.
Level designers and concept artists may also be required to provide a pre-rendered map of the level for the player.
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 immersive experience, and sometimes, especially in story-based games, to advance the storyline.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 feature power-ups and items positioned so that collecting them inevitably makes the player move in the correct direction. This is one of the basic player direction techniques and is most often seen in platformers.
Lighting and illumination, as well as distinctly-coloured objects, are often used to unambiguously guide the player towards the correct path. Similarly, clearly marked choke-points can be introduced. Yellow paint is often used in modern games to guide the player in the right direction, though this approach is commonly criticised due to its unsubtlety.
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 Real-Time Strategy 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.