Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
you the skills you need to use such tools, but you can find many resources for
learning to use them on the Internet and at colleges and universities.
For simplicity's sake, this section assumes that you are creating levels for a game
that uses a 3D graphics engine to display a 3D game world. If you are making a 2D
game, where it refers to models, think in terms of their 2D equivalents:
sprites
(2D
art and animation) for movable objects and the
background
(a 2D painting, often
made up of interchangeable rectangular tiles) for the landscape.
Design to Level Design Handoff
In the first stage, the game designers will tell you in a general way what they want
for the level: its setting, mood, key gameplay activities, and events. You should
then generate a list of features you want to appear in the level:
■
Events that can be triggered by player action
Props (objects that will be present in the level)
■
Nonplayer characters (NPCs)
■
At this point you also create a rough overview map of the level, showing how the
landscape varies and what props and NPCs will be in which areas. See
Figure 12.7
for an example from an unproduced driving game by Pseudo Interactive, set on
islands inhabited by dinosaurs.
FIGURE 12.7
Rough level sketch for
a driving game show-
ing key features. Image
courtesy Pseudo
Interactive.
