Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Level design basics, part 2

An arch level design is hard, as it doesn't involve only polygon boxes, but also also three dimensional curve lines. If you ever played. Americas army 1, you'll know how hard it is to make a curve building, like the famous over played bridge crossing map. The point is to start. With one curve. Curve is not a straight line, but it's still a line. Means it is possible to apply lines into a three dimensional level. arch 0 0 1 0
Post a Comment
Read more

Level design basics, part 7

Meta files Meta means in between. Wild hard ware and soft ware connection. A game design level document is just documentation; it is normal text. Actual level files however are en coded. Not normal text, in other words; which is why they are a lot harder to make. Forests for example are hard to put into a text file. Trees are real world eco systems that are the source of nature and life. It is one thing to put a real world object into a game, what is even a LOT harder is putting one, for example a tree into a text file. Source code is just sofware, it is nothing but encoded writing, which is why to put it into soft ware is not exactly easy, but has been done many times before. However, putting source code directly into hard ware is a completely different thing. That's where meta files come in handy. Meta files are clay ware. They work very similiar to a human brain. Like a connection between software and hardware. A meta file contains level game design documentation and level code....
Post a Comment
Read more

Coding

I find it extremely hard to code a game. It gets worse than that. I also have to do the game design, UI design, level design and the story. Basically lots of bugs, lots to learn, lots to design. The good news is I have a teammate and she works on level design and story. Helps a lot regardless there is tons of work to be done before even first of the three Trix games gets published. I sometimes work even 12 hours a day. Yikes!
Post a Comment
Read more