GDC 2010 - Level Design in a Day Part 1. Preproduction: Ed Byrne, Creative Director, Zipper Interactive
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Please note: There is a ton of good information in the notes sections of these presentations. Please download locally and view in PowerPoint to experience all the juicy details. In this intense day-long tutorial, attendees will gain deep insights from some of the most experienced level designers in the industry into every aspect of the level design process, from basic navigation and object manipulation tips and tricks to best practices for encounter design and level flow. As the development discipline responsible for crafting the vastly important moment-to-moment player experience, a deep understanding of core level design principles becomes essential for level designers, game designers and design managers alike. Likewise, an intimate familiarity with the level creation process can be a massive advantage to producers, testers or artists in frequent collaboration with level designers. This year’s session will focus on the Unreal Engine, while subsequent years will focus on Source, Quake, and other popular engines.
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GDC 2010 - Level Design in a Day Part 1. Preproduction: Ed Byrne, Creative Director, Zipper Interactive
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Hinweis der Redaktion
- Obligatory GDC slide!!!
- Welcome, readers. Hopefully these slides make sense! Some have notes that I used while presenting, others have notes I added later to clarify some slides.
- Notes! Woohoo!
- So here’s the imaginary situation. Maybe you’re a level designer or a game designer, producer or director. You need to leverage a certain amount of time ascribed to pre-production as efficiently as possible, I’m going to show you how to do that. Mostly I’m using a generic AAA FPS as a framework here but most rules apply to all genres.
- Hopefully this is self-explanatory
- The breakdown of the game design process looks like this, from 10,000 feet.
- This is how film does it. When we don’t do level design pre-production (or any pre-production) its like we’re writing the script while we’re filming the movie. For games, the “Script” is the game design doc, wiki, prototype or vision of the creative leads.
- Level design pre-production relies heavily on the predetermination of both narrative and gameplay elements. Without both, design can only move forward along one axis. During the game, more gameplay elements are exposed over time, controlled by the pacing and events of the narrative for the most part.
- We hear a lot about this in post-mortems, for example “We should have spent more time in pre-production” but what does it mean? Pre-production is a common element in any design process. Before committing to a finished product the designer explores the form and function of his plans. Architects build whitebox models, Car designers build clay prototypes. In order to maximize time and minimize cost, pre-production allows safe exploration of creative space before committing full resources to building it. It also helps to ensure the design of the game itself is solid and satisfactory and allows for team buy-in before production starts.
- So, by now you hopefully have some sort of story or narrative to determine “beats” or key events within the story that provide anchors for your levels. Some games have lots of story such as Fallout 3, requiring more specific attention to narrative structure and anchors. Other games like Shadow of the Colossus maybe have included levels designed more as lights of fancy within a largely abstract world defined largely by what the player can do – climb and stab things. With that narrative in place and armed with a list of what kind of systems your game has, you can start to play.
- The first step in starting level design – like many creative processes – is brainstorming. Generating ideas in bulk, in the company of other people. A moderator is needed to “whip” the team and make sure the process doesn’t bog down over one particular idea or diverge into tangential discussion. The more detailed the notes, the better. Even ideas that seem crazy at this stage may end up as the wow moments later. Important! What needs to happen here is to be creative, don’t worry about HOW to pull off these ideas yet! Keep this phase mostly restricted to the level design team to avoid being pulled off into technical or art discussions.
- This is one of our War Rooms at Zipper. Use black foamcore on the walls to make sure you can move all the material easily.
- And here’s a “War Hallway” – if you don’t have a spare conference room a hallway makes a second option. It also means people who walk by get a chance to stop and look at what’s new.
- So at this stage an abstract really is abstract. High level keeps the tram form getting too ingrained in detail. You’re just parceling up land at this stage, creating the basic containers for the more detailed events and gameplay to happen within, which is the next stage.
- Notes: most of these are self-explanatory but by filling in these forms you instantly have the beginnings of what could be called a level… though maybe not necessarily a great one Of course to be able to fill in the blanks we need to know what ingredients we have to work with. I like “ingredients” because it supports a cooking metaphor – it’s not the ingredients but their creative combination that makes a meal. Same for levels. Great levels are often a perfect balance of otherwise very simple ingredients.
- Encounters are the highlights of the level. Where gameplay happens and the player is forced to interact. Encounters are the obstacles we talked about earlier – the challenges that lie between the player and his goal or exit. Encounters are usually spaced out with non-encounter space (empty rooms, downtime, etc.)
- The highlights of the level. Where gameplay happens and the player is forced to interact. The sequence of your encounters drives the flow, rhythm and difficulty of your level Encounters are the obstacles we talked about earlier – the challenges that lie between the player and his goal or exit.
- Invest in Post-Its. Seriously.
- Even if encounters don’t make their intended level, keep ‘em for later. Nothing you create is wasted, and doing paper design in a journal and sketchpad means you have instant access to the entire backlog of your creative history.
- Cell diagrams allow the team to quickly see the sequence – or network – of encounters and how that will play out. Early problems and potential cuts can be identified at this stage. For instance, the reliance on a particular mechanic or the inclusion of too many different elements. This is where the LEVEL DESIGN INSTINCTS come on line. If someone sees or feels a concern explore it now – don’t wait until yuo’ve sunk hundreds of hours into creating a complex paper map to find out that the level won’t work.
- An example of a cell diagram on a napkin. Sanitary? No. Portable? Yes.
- Watercooler moments are the experiences that players are likely to remember a year, five years after playing the game. They are also the most commonly “cool” encounters and thus discussed amongst fans around the watercooler – or at least in the forums. We also call these “WOW moments” or “hooks”.
- Useful to compare to car design? (concept – clay – paper?)
- Medium: LEGOs Table-top props Playdough
- Medium Illustrator program Pen and paper Geographical maps
- Medium Illustrator program Pen and paper Geographical maps
- Photo collage Storyboard Video montage
- Photo collage Storyboard Video montage
- Walkthroughs are written documents that outline and narrate the level experienced as it would be from the player’s point of view.
- Your paper design is the last stage of design before you're ready to go ahead and start building. In essence it is the blueprint of the space you are about to make. Obviously, many problems will only become apparent when you begin building your level – the paper design is a static, two-dimensional representation of your map, and as such will provide the starting point for the iterative process of creating a game environment. Still, paper designs allow you to present your whole level to the rest of the team, and allow people to make comments and criticism about the level before you begin construction so that you can revise your design immediately. As such it's important to go through this last process for the sake of others as well as your own.
- The Producer and leads will want to know your estimates on how long you think it will take, the size and scope, the difficulty and general experience for the player. The programming team will want to know how much unique coding will be needed for the level, and how much existing work can be used. They will want to see the complexity of the map and hear how you will work to keep the framerate up and the calculations down. They will also want to hear about how it will be pathed, AI requirements, and anything else that affects their work. The art and audio team will want to know about unique models, items, characters, textures, animations, special effects, sounds, and music needed for the level. They will need to know the environmental setting, locational information, the look and feel of the map and the mood you intend to create for the player or players. The scripting and cinematic team will need to know how many cutscenes there are, how many encounters or special sequences will be required, how complex they are in terms of dialogue, special characters, linear progression and anything that may effect the way the story is told in both the level itself and the level's part of the overall game narrative.
- I’ve seen many projects utterly confused and confabulated by the lack of a proper naming convention for art assets, levels, characters…
- Stairs should be labeled and indicate whether they go up, down, or connect multiple floors Elevators should be labeled as to where their final destination is (Elevator to B2) and if they aren't active from the start of the level, how the player will trigger them. Corridors and passageways should roughly indicate length, or if there's no room, use dashed lines for the walls to indicate that the space is longer than it appears on the page. Doorways and openings should be marked in for relative size, and if the doors swing only one way, you can indicate that too by a small arc that describes the swing direction of each door in the frame.
- Remember, level designers are the funnels through which ingredients enter, and gameplay comes out. Stand up for your creative rights and demand quality pre-production time!