LEVEL-DESIGN.org News Roundup – Volume 23:

Articles:

• Boss rush: Squaring up to one of videogames’ longest-running traditions, the end-of-level battle [Edge Magazine]
• The Iterative Level Design Process of Bethesda Game Studios [Bethesda Blog] [SlideShare]
• Types of Designers [Liz England’s Blog]
• Examining the Essential Building Blocks of Stealth Play [Gamasutra]
• Making of Jagged Alliance levels by Rasmus Künstlicher [Sector D8 Combat] [Making of Sector C14]

Contests:

• $5k Insurgency Mapping Contest 2014 [Game Banana]

Tools:

• Modular Builder Script [Polycount]

Videos:

• League of Legends: Summoner’s Rift – Level Design Analysis [Design Club]
• Super Mario Bros Level 1-1 Analysis [Design Club]
• Rage Subway Town – Environment Presentation [Polygon Fragments]
• Citizen Returns Part 1 – HL2 SP Level Design Commentary [Custom Gamer]
• Crow Avenue – HL2 SP Level Design Commentary [Custom Gamer]
• Level Design – Early Video Games [YouTube]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org Reference Database Updates:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Complete SP Campaign [Gallery]
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MP) – Complete MP Campaign [Gallery]
• Call of Duty: World at War – Complete SP Campaign [Gallery]
• Call of Duty: World at War (MP) – Few first Multiplayer levels [Gallery]
• Dead Island: Riptide – Two first locations [Gallery]
• Wolfenstein: New Order – First few levels [Gallery]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org News Roundup – Volume 22:

Articles:

• How Mega Textures are working in Rage – Very technical and not related directly to Level Art & Design but it’s good to know how it works [Article & Movies]
• Raven Software Design Test 2014 – How to get a job in Raven Software [Design Test @ Raven]

Art Dumps:

• Watch_Dogs Art Dumps [Polycount Thread 1] [Polycount Thread 2]

Competitions:

• DiamondDogsVille Competition – Half-Life 2 Mapping Contest [PlanetPhillip]

Scenes & Portfolios:

• Ted McIlwain – Level Designer [Ted’s Portfolio]
• Metal Monstrosity – Quake 1 SP Level by Simon “Sock” O’Callaghan [Simon’s Website]
• System Shock 2 Homage – CryENGINE 3 Scene by Simon Pennington [Polycount Thread] [Simon’s Portfolio]
• Stylized Basement – UDK Scene by Michał Kubas [Polycount Thread] [Michał’s Portfolio]

Interviews:

• Francois “Furyo” Roughol – Senior Level Designer (BioShock: Infinite, Crysis 2, Assassin’s Creed) [MapCore]

Tools:

• CryENGINE is now available on Steam! [Steam Blog]

Videos:

• Call of Duty: Ghosts – Mutiny Map Preview [YouTube Video]
• Call of Duty: Ghosts – Pharaoh Map Preview [YouTube Video]
• Metal Monstrosity – Quake 1 SP Level by Simon “Sock” O’Callaghan [CustomGamer Video]
• Ceremonial Circles – Quake 1 SP Level by CZG [CustomGamer Video]

Websites:

• Art For Games [ArtForGames.com]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org Reference Database Updates:

• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood – Complete SP Campaign [Gallery]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org News Roundup – Volume 21:

Articles:

• Titanfall – Making of Runoff level by Geoff Smith [Titanfall Blog]
• Lighting is Everything [The Astronauts Blog]

Scenes & Portfolios:

• Deus Ex Corridor by Wiktor Ohman [Polycount Thread] [Wiktor’s Portfolio]

Videos:

• Titanfall – Making of Swampland [YouTube Video]
• Final Threat by Andrew “Than” Palmer [CustomGamer Video]
• Level Design Diary – PowerStruggle v1.1 [CustomGamer Video]
• Dark Souls 2 “Maluja” [Polygon Fragments YouTube Video]

Other:

• Quake 1 Mod – Quoth 2.2 Released [func_msgboard]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org Reference Database Updates:

• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood – First few levels [Gallery Page]
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (MP) – DLC Levels [Gallery Page]
• Fallout: New Vegas – DLC Levels [Gallery Page]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org News Roundup – Volume 20:

Please follow LEVEL-DESIGN.org on Facebook and Twitter!

Articles:

• Titanfall – War Games Level Description [Titanfall Website]

Scenes & Portfolios:

• Arbor Vitae – UDK Scene by Helder Pinto and Phillp K available for download [Helder’s Portfolio Website]
• Mike Snight, Environment Artist [Portfolio Website]
• Dan Quinn, Environment Artist [Portfolio Website]
• Ryan Leslie, Environment Artist [Portfolio Website]
• Rasmus Kunstlicher, Level Designer [Portfolio Website]

Competitions:

• Interlopers: Half-Life 2 “The Forgotten Journey” Competition [Interlopers Contest Page]

Videos:

• We Play Doom With John Romero – Doom Analysis [YouTube Video]
• Q1SP: Kleins Bottle by FMX [Custom Gamer Commentary]
• Call of Duty Developer Walkthrough With Commentary [YouTube Videos]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org Reference Database Updates:

• Thief – Complete SP Campaign [Album Page]
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Complete MP Campaign [Album Page]
• Fallout: New Vegas – DLC Pictures [Album Page]
• Castlevania: Lord of Shadows (XBox 360) – Big thanks for Scott C. for sharing! [Album Page]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org News Roundup – Volume 19

Articles and Galleries:

• Overpas, Evolved – An article about recent changes on CS:GO’s map “Overpass” [CS:GO Blog]
• Maps of the Month – Suggestions of best recently released CS:GO maps, designers’ thoughts and insights included! [VaKarM.net]
• Building Crown, Part 3 – Collaborating with the Counter-Strike community [PC Gamer Article]
• Unreal Engine 4 Effects Showcase [Polycount Thread]
• Two Types of Level Design in the Funpocalpyse by Josh Hufton [Proletariat Blog]
• Level Design Concepts [HobbyGameDev Blog]
• Modded “Skyrim Landscapes IV” Gallery [Imgur Gallery]

Portfolios On Spot:

• Paul Svoboda [Paul’s Portfolio]

Videos:

• Architecture of Deus Ex: Human Revolution [YouTube Videos]

Interviews:

• Interview with Kacper “KNJ” Niepokólczycki – Author of Deus Ex: Human Revolution scene [MapCore Articles]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org Reference Database:

• Thief (2014) – Half of the campaign [Gallery]
• Dark Souls – First few minutes [Gallery]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org News Roundup – Volume 18

GDC 2014 “Level Design in a Day” Presentations:

• “Iterative Level Design Process” Joel Burgess [GDC Vault Presentation]
• “The Importance of Everything: Analytics of Map Design” Jim Brown [GDC Vault Presentation]
• “The Importance of Nothing: Negative Space in Level Design” Jim Brown [GDC Vault Presentation]
• “The Las of Us: Casting Shadows” Elisabetta Silli [GDC Vault Presentation]
• “A Series of First Steps” Seth Marinello [GDC Vault Presentation – Starting on page 22]

Articles:

• Level Design: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell [Gather Your Party Blog]
• How Do I Make An Area Unique [SNOW Development Blog]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org Reference Database Updates:

• Alan Wake – More screenshots but still it’s not yet complete [Gallery Page]
• Payday 2 – Screenshots from two levels [Gallery Page]

Epic Games has released Unreal Engine 4, fully featured toolset with full C++ source code. You can licence the engine for only $19 per month! More information can be found on official Unreal Engine’s website.

This video shows engine’s new features including: Full Scene HDR Reflections, Post-Process Effects, Temporal Anti-Aliasing, Physically-Based Shading, GPU Particle Simulation and Collision, Thousands of Dynamic Lights Per Scene, Redesigned Level Editor, Mac OS X, iOS and Android Support, Oculus Rift Support and many more!

Get started with new tutorials, create your own level in UE4.

LEVEL-DESIGN.org News Roundup – Volume 17

GDC’s “Level Design in a Day” is up right now! Hope to see some notes and articles soon!

Articles:

• 5 Years of Level Design in a Day [Gamasutra Article]
• Level Design in a Day: Your Questions, Answered [Gamasutra Article]
• Titanfall: Maps and Routes – Level Analysis [Screenshot Gallery]
• Getting into Level Design [Vector Poem Blog Post]

Videos:

• The Masque of Red Death by Tronyn – Q1SP Video Commentary [CustomGamer]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org Reference Database Updates:

• Kane & Lynch 2 – Complete SP Campaign. Thanks to jpintor! [Gallery Page]
• Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 – First level [Gallery Page]
• Titanfall – First few levels from Campaign [Gallery Page]

A Counter-Strike: Global Offensive level “DE_Crown” by Vulcano and FMPONE has been released! More information from the authors and download link can be found here.

Additional stuff:

• PC Gamer posted second part of “Making of” article about Crown map
• Sylvain M. did a nice fly-through video, check it out
  
• Drop a line with you thoughts in level’s thread on MapCore

LEVEL-DESIGN.org News Roundup – Volume 16

Sorry it took me so long to create this news roundup. I’m quite busy right now. Anyway, here’s what I found:

Articles & Interviews:

• Leaked Top-Down Images of All 15 Maps From Titanfall and some level shots [All Games Beta: Top-Down Images and Level Shots]
• Building Crown – Part One: The First Look at The Next Big CS:GO Competitive Map [PC Gamer Article]
• Design Philosophy: de_train_ve [Volcano on Gaming Blog]
• The Secret of Immersive Game Worlds [Gamasutra Article]
• Doom as 1 Level [ModDB Project]

Videos:

• Anatomy of a Titanfall Map [GameSpot Video]
• Call of Duty: Ghosts – New DLC Maps Description Video and Images [All Games Beta]
• Tim Willits on Game and Level Design [YouTube Video]
• Thousand Faced Moon by Fingers – Q1SP [Custom Gamer Commentary]
• RJ Zone by Digs – Q1SP [Custom Gamer Commentary]

Tools:

• CryEngine 3.5.8 Update [CryDev Forum Post]
• UDK February 2014 Update [Download & Changelist]

LEVEL-DESIGN.org Reference Database:

I did some changes in the database. Each album from MultiPlayer game is described with “(MP)” text at the end of album’s name so SP and MP modes are now in separate albums.

• Alan Wake – First few hours for a good start [Reference Database]
• Alien Rage – Complete SP Campaign [Reference Database]
• Bioshock 2 – More than a half of SP campaign but I couldn’t make it to the end [Reference Database]
• Call of Duty: Black Ops (MP) – Complete MultiPlayer levels gallery [Reference Database]
• Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 – Complete SP Campaign [Reference Database]