Hi fellow artists and designers, welcome to the 46th volume of the LEVEL-DESIGN.org News Roundup. This Time I got for you around 50 interesting links to recent level art and design materials. I hope you’ll enjoy the collection!
A little update note:
Recently I got busy at work and I dedicated my personal time to writing a Level Art & Design book. That’s it, some of you guys already know it. I’m writing about my experiences as a level designer, about how to become and grow as a designer. There will be also a lot of material about how to build levels for small, linear games and also huge, open world blockbusters. I don’t have any due date but I hope to finish draft by the end of the year. This book is the main reason why I’m not updating the website and recording new shows. One show is ready and will be published soon. I hope to release one show per month after I’ll finish with core of the book.
Articles:
- Nobody Cares About It But It’s The Only Thing That Matters: Pacing And Level Design In JRPGs
- Rayman Legends : Level design analysis Part 1
- An Article for a Level Design Glossary
- The Level Design of Super Mario Odyssey’s Best Stage
- The Difference Between Environmental and Level Design
- Dealing With Navigation & Players’ Behavior
- The Three Essential Parts of Good Level Design
- Dishonored: Gameplay Refinement & Level Groundwork
- Behind the Scenes: AI of Uncharted 4
- Using Real Geo Data to Build Video Game Worlds
- A Prefab Primer
- Six Days in Fallujah’s Campaign
- Prey 2’s Locktown District
- Prey 2’s Bowery District
- Environment Composition Iteration in Steel Hunters
- Designing Highly Replayable Stealth Levels for Payday 2
- Creating Level and Map Generator with Houdini
- Q&A: Building and balancing Battletech’s procedural missions
- Keep Running | Procedural Level Generation in Sure Footing
- Dead Body Falls: Shaping narrative through level design
- An Analysis of Assassin’s Creed Origins: Strongholds
- An Analysis of Thief
- Behind The Scenes: The Beacon
- A Normal Day as a Level Designer
- Researchers teach AI the art of ‘interesting’ level design
- Level Design in Max Payne: Roscoe Street Station
Podcasts:
Videos:
- The World Design of Dark Souls | Boss Keys
- Unpleasant Design – When Bad Design is Used to Hide Problems – Extra Credits
- Level With Me: level design in Jalopy (2018)
- Level With Me: Level Design in Thief 1 (1998), Chapter 1 (Lord Bafford’s Manor)
- Jotun & Tense Level Design // Playing at Being (LudicRyan)
- How does Dark Souls teach new players? | Part 1: the Undead Asylum
- Heartbound Devstream 214 – Level Design
- Procedural Level Generation in Sure Footing
- GDC 2018: Level Design Workshop: Balancing Action and RPG in Horizon Zero Dawn Quests
- GDC 2018: Exploring Hidden Stories in the World of XCOM 2
- Other Places: Rapture (BioShock)
- Level Design in Brood War
- Blizzard’s Aaron Keller Breaks Down Overwatch Map Design
- How The Train Level In Uncharted 2 Works
- Off Camera Secrets | Uncharted 2 – Boundary Break
- Farlands – Valiant Hearts – Emotional Arcs Through Level Design
- Why procedural levels were better than handmade ones for City of Brass
- Blocking out a level in JACK for GoldSource
- Procedural World Generation of Ubisoft’s Far Cry 5
- Fatshark Talks – Level Design in Vermintide 2 – Prologue and the Keep
- UE4: 8-Step Checklist for Level Scene Setup to Begin Working
Other: