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Level design basics, part 11

Hard level design
To make a hard level, you have to apply challenge methods, used on
steam games: achievements are very hard to get. Especially when it comes
to magic games. I had a lot of fun playing bridge crossing in americas army.

Also the FBI in counter strike. Very simple level design, but lot of hard
challenging fun. Traditionally, people think some easy games are fun. But
they really aren't. Making a fun map level requires making a good challenge

structure.

Example hard level design
A good challenge structure: must be directly related to the core steam
mechanics. Pacing is important in hard first person shooters, so if you
ever played a first person shooter, on steam you'll see the achievements

are really hard to get. So the steam basically works just like level design.

secret.bat
get on the 300th level

Steam is a system of games, level design is like a system of levels. Levels
in steam games; or at least some include achievement, so it's important to
under stand steam script code. It basically connects the game and the valve

server. Valve server process many levels every 10 seconds. And the load
that goes back to the game client can quickly over load the server. It reports
back to valve server, but the number of game clients running simultaneously

could easily over load the servers. Which is why it's important to design a
game that has low level data load. This is done by separating data files in
10 segments. Each segment should have about maximum 10 files. These

10 segments mean 1 level, not a chapter or a campaign. A hard level should
have fun achievement connection points. This is done by separating level
objectives into two levels: first is normal tasks, second is achievement tasks.

A hard level is hard to beat, but it will save you the troubles of making a fun,
challenging system. What is hard when making a hard level map is including
all the achievements in one map batch. It is one thing putting them in a

2 dimensional map editor, but a lot harder in the unreal engine editor. Unreal
engine requires a lot of work to create a 3 dimensional map: scripts, three
dimensional objects, progress lines, principle design; I tried making in the

editor.

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