The Art of level designing for games:

The Art of level designing for games:

Creating levels for games is a very challenging job,a good level can take the game to a whole new level while a bad level might make the game look boring inspite of having great graphics or AI.

A good level can make the player come back again and again and can help create a beautiful relationship between the game and the players.

Some of the good examples of games having good level designs:

• Half life
• GTA V
• Deus Ex and 
• Rise of tomb raider.

Lets take an example of level design from one of the above games:

Rise of tomb raider:

Well most of us love tomb raider and have played the games from a long time.The tomb raider franchise has also come a long way till now with lots of improvements over the years.

One of the main reasons that Rise of tomb raider has attracted so many player's is because of its dynamic level design and art work.

Tomb raider levels are not only huge,but they have many puzzles that are challenging the players from time to time .Puzzles are one way in which you could make your levels more interesting.

The tomb raider world is filled with puzzles and that makes the whole world interesting for the player to explore.

Below are a few images from Square Enix's Rise of tomb raider:

Lets get back to the topic:

So what makes levels interesting? I am sure just by adding a random number of puzzle's in a level doesn't make it great.So what are the other ingredients that make it more interesting:

Lighting: Lighting can make a whole lot of difference in  a game,it can help you guide your player through the level,increase the overall aesthetics of the game world and it can help you do various interesting stuff when you play with it.

A good level design always is fun to navigate and explore,it should guide the player through the game without giving away the hints of what is about to come.So here are a few tips to take care while designing a level:

Layout: Always make layout roughly on a paper or Photoshop as to how your level might look.It usually gives you a rough idea on blocking out the level first rather than just concentrating only on the details.
Careful layout,lighting and other visual cues will make you'r level more interesting and also fun to
play.

Navigation will be the only mean by which the player can interact with your level,so it is very important to get the navigation right(creating rough layout at an early stage is very helpful for creating interesting traversable paths in a level).

A good level design doesn't need a good story to make it look good.
Half life does a very good job in helping the player navigate the level through various techniques,one of them is in the pic

    Here the spotlight acts as a visual interest for the player,and the player is most likely to navigate     here rather than wandering in some other dark spaces of the level.

A good level shows the player how to do, but not what to do.

A level is said to be good/great when it has the right balance of action,exploration and rest for the player. Everytime it is not necessary to have narrow pathways or bridges or everytime enemies running all over you.

Every level design should be unique and not repetitive for the player. Ofcourse you can use certain elements with different variations.

A great level design empowers the player's.

Remember you just can't go on using all the assets you have at your disposal,use it wisely.A good level is not determined by the number of assets used,it is determined how well you have used it while trying to save resources i.e A good level design is efficient.

A great level design always creates emotion for the player i.e the player wants to visit it again,it immerses and engages the player completely into the game.

Thats it for this article, hope you guys had fun reading it.The next time i will write about starting as a level designer,mostly about the tools that help bring imagination/concept to life.