What do you do?
A level designer is not the same as
a game designer although there is overlap at times.
We work closely with the game designers who provide
all of the details about the actual game play and the
game mechanics. They provide the story. They will tell
you about the locations ‘here’s what you
are doing here’, and they give you a brief on
what the location is all about and what the level is
all about. And, from there the level designer takes
that information and says ‘okay, I’ve got
these components, and I’ve got these elements,
and I’ve got these requirements’ and then
builds the level requirements around those requirements.
You are looking at level layouts; you
are looking at enemy placements if it’s a typical
sort of shooter game.
Obviously it’s going to vary depending on the
nature of the game you are making. You then either hand
these to your level builders and work closely with them
while they construct it, or depending on the complexity
of the game and how many levels you need to create and
what the tools are, level designers will often build,
or assist building these levels.
Increasing the complexity of the levels of the game
is something more for the designer to decide on, but
you’ll be responsible for implementing that. In
the first few levels, you’ll demonstrate the game
mechanics to the new players and give them an idea of
how everything works in this game world. From then on
you’ll ramp up and introduce new scenarios and
allow them to use the skills they’ve learnt so
far, and also adapt to new situations.
How did you get to where you are today?
I was designing and building my own levels at home,
working on release games that release their tool sets,
like Quake - games where you can design and
build your own levels at home. I was having a lot of
fun with that and entertained the notion of joining
the games industry and didn’t really think about
it too seriously because I thought it would be quite
difficult to gain a job in the games industry.
Then one of my friends, who happened to be working
at Torus at the time, gave me a call and said ‘I
need some level designers, think about applying’,
and so I did. I had an interview, then flew down from
Sydney to take the job. It’s been about four and
half years now and I’m still happily working at
Torus.
What skills are necessary for you
to do your job?
You really need to understand and appreciate game
flow and game mechanics. And,
play games and recognise how the games
work, if that’s not too much of a generalisation.
You need to be able to take those elements and rearrange
them and put them in a different format and create lots
of different levels.
I started out as a level builder essentially (and I
guess I’m moving into more of a design role now).
It’s about constructing levels, being able to
have a good game flow in your level design and understanding
what things players need - visual cues and
things like that -- to understand those elements so
you can make a good and fun level that people can easily
navigate and have fun in.
I guess level designers often talk about it being both
an art and a science,
where to some extent you have to consider the aesthetics
of what you are creating. Whilst in a games development
studio your artist will often have that covered, the
level designer is also talking about the lighting and
the textures and arranging all of this in a visually
pleasing way, and also in a functional way so that players
can see the way they need to go and what they need to
do. And the science of it – the game mechanics
– is technically how you construct these things
and how you put them in the game.
Typically a level designer needs to have some knowledge
and ability in all of these areas to really do the job
effectively.
How important was your education/training?
I guess it’s a double edge sword at the moment.
There is not really any formal education available,
although courses are starting to pop up now, I guess.
People are starting to introduce these things, and that’s
a good thing obviously. But it’s not like many
other lines of work where there is a recognised degree
or path to the job. It’s more a case of you needing
to be able to demonstrate the skills that
you need and the enthusiasm that you
need to design and create levels.
Where do you see your career going?
With so many studios focusing on design now as games
get more complicated, you have more game designers and
more level designers. I guess the career path for a
level designer is a lead level designer
role where you would be managing a team and doing a
little less hands-on work and more coordinating –
coordinating people’s efforts towards the greater
goal.
Personally I’m moving into games design
a little bit more now. That’s a fairly natural
progression too for a level designer, as you are quite
used to basically gluing these games together. You need
to understand all of the game design aspects and technically
how the game works and how the game is put together
so it’s quite natural for level designers to move
into a game design role if they feel comfortable with
that and if they have the skill to take that on.
What advice would you give to someone
wanting to enter the games industry?
The best thing possible for a level designer is to
find some games they enjoy and that they can work with
at home that have available tool sets and tutorials
so that they can learn how to do level construction.
Design and build those levels. Document
how you’ve designed them - your level layouts
and keep copies of those. Keep copies
of any notes that you’ve done while you are doing
that, and create these levels or work with other people
to create these levels.
Demonstrating that you can do a variety of different
genres is always useful – so make a first
person shooter level; make a RTS level; make whatever
you can make in different formats. You are trying to
demonstrate the core skills of design and level building
as well. You don’t want to focus too much on one
type of game otherwise you are going to limit yourself
a little bit in your application.
Once you’ve built up your skills and built up
your portfolio a little bit you should
definitely be shopping yourself around and submitting
your application to games development studios.
Definitely have a website where people
can look at your screen shots or download your levels
and read about your design processes.
Joining a ‘mod’ group
is probably a very good move, which gives an idea of
what it is like to work with other people in
the game development business , and to see how well
you go with that and see what other people require of
you and what you require of other people. |
