Developing a game levels

ABSTRACT:

This dissertation is focused on the Current FPS Game Levels Played and Suggests how to Develop a Game level based on a gamers Feed backs. The full content and the Procedure of the Dissertation is based on experiences and first hand research

In this dissertation you find all the needed data about how to create a level and the proper procedure of developing a level based on Gamers feed back. The process explained in this dissertation is much simpler and organized for the current generation of gaming

We shall discuss on how to start of by understanding the current generation of Gamers and how to create a proper game level with the researched data.

This dissertation explains the procedure thoroughly in such a way that it can be implemented at any given generations of gaming. The procedure can be used by any game designer. They can use the implemented data and get optimal result based on their first hand research.

AIM:

To analyze the perceptions of gamers and to develop a proper game level using their feed backs

OBEJECTIVE:

• To explain the procedure for a proper game level
• To analyze the current status of gaming
• To evaluate the research data and come out with a proper conclusion
• To analyze the do’s and don’ts for creating a level
• To provide a guideline to level designers to use researched materials
• To make a recommendation for creating a proper level in future

METHODS:

• Establishing a targeted audiences
• A survey of current practice in different types of levels
• A survey of current practice in different types of themes used in levels
• A survey of current practice in different types of genres
• A series of case studies about the most popular levels
• A review of historical perspective of level designing
• A qualitative evaluation of gamers review

Summary of Chapters

1. Describing what is a game level
• The first phase is Introduction and brief history about level design. Readers will get a brief introduction about the topic and will also get to read some of the brief history
2. Preparing for survey research
• The second phase is preparing a proper survey question for the audience. This phase is really important and will make you understand the current generation of gaming
3. Establishing Targeted Audiences
• The third phase explains about choosing the right audiences for your research
4. Interviewing them Individually
• The fourth phase will a face 2 face interview with the gamers and asking them questions according to the survey
5. Analyzing the Researched Data
• The Fifth phase will be analyze all the researched data and create a proper chart of everything
6. Pre Production ( Concepts Layouts And Design)
• The sixth phase we have to create concept arts and layouts according to the Chart
7. Production ( Prototype and Modeling the Map)
• The Seventh Phase is the production part. Where we will be creating a proper prototype and then move on to creating the level
8. Post Production ( lighting, Effects and Finalization)
• The Eighth phase is the finalization phase. Where we should have a proper working level. Then testing and balancing the level
9. Selling your level
• The final phase is how to release and sell your level

Introduction:

Building levels is one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I can think of. Taking pure imagination and making it come alive is absolutely addictive-a creative process so immersive and consuming that you’ll start craving it when you haven’t done it for too long. Some people think the fun is in playing the game, but, for a few special people, creating and building the environments in which other people play causes mere game playing to pale in comparison. If you’re reading this book, you are probably one of those special people who have that compulsion to create, and, with your creation, entertain.

Level design is a mixture of art and science. Level design requires artistic skills and as well as extensive technical knowledge. Any level designer with professional skills will no succeed by grasping current generation of gaming, game flow and pacing. A level designer who understands this structure has no architectural or Art experience will fail as well.

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Level designing is creations of levels in which the player interacts with the game environment to play in the game universe. A level is created by using the level design tools in an existing engine or even a new engine can be created to create your own level design according to your user interface and shortcuts. Many famous company usually develop there own level editor. This way they can keep up with the current generation of gaming and save a lot a time.

Creating a level design might be easy for any level designer but the main question will the level sell or liked by the gamers? At least more than 100 of levels are posted online for different games out of which only very few get chosen and liked by gamers. The whole point of level design is How addictive and competitive is your level? Will it be played again and again? Will it sell in the market?

In this dissertation you will get to see a complete guide on how to create a game level based on gamer’s feedback. And give you a complete solution on developing a working level which will sell in the market easily. The methods described in this dissertation can be analyzed and used at time of the gaming generation. The whole process revolves in an around gamers of current gaming generations.

This dissertation is specially designed for wide range of people. Actually, the first priority group for this dissertation is game level designers. And this dissertation also explains how a level can be created by using the feedbacks of current generation of gaming. This dissertation is should be read from start to finish because you come to know that each chapter has it own meaning and importance.

Chapter 1: Describing what is a game level

Level designing is the creations of levels in a level editor by a level designer. To create a proper level design by a level designer needs artistic as well as architectural skills. Level is one who is never afraid to step back and re-correcting their content. A great designer needs to throw content out or work on concepts that needs attention

A level designer creates a level try to sell it and make it famous it doesn’t work why because the level? Have mention the reason below

• concept is boring and repetitive
• Themes are repetitive and not new
• Is not built properly
• Doesn’t understand the current gaming generation
• Proper obstacles are not used

It is extremely important for a level designer to recognize a proper level. Instead of making a same level which concept is already used? They should try to come out with something really new when his work is not coming together. In one instance a games become tired of playing the same level with the same and boring content over and over. A great level might gets scrapped or reworked because a designing cycle is dragging on and a gamers who plays it feels the work is not as fresh and new. A designer must recognize that their view is tainted.

One good possibilities of creating a good level is by understanding the gamers of the current gaming generations

History:

In the earlier days there was no such thing has level designer. Everything was done by the programmer. So basically the game programmer does the programming part and the level designing part.

The Beginning 1975-1980

In the beginning people never really cared about the levels in the games are played because. The first games where were developed didn’t need that much of attention for levels.

MUDs was one of the firsts games that actually required a lots of attention and time to the level designs .This Game was developed by “Ralph Koster, Brad McQuaid, Mark Jacobs, Brian Green and J.Todd Coleman. A MUD ( multi-user dungeon ), is a multi-user real-time virtual world which is described entirely in text. Basically the game is a text based game. It have different features of elements like RPG ( role-playing-games), Interactive fictions and online chatting. Users actually got to see a lot in this game because of the details of the description such as rooms, object, other players, non-players characters, and actions performed in the virtual world

Players interacts with each other by typing in commands.

The designers where assigned to create new paths, design and tools for this game. The game interface used in this was ZZT, which was a early notable interface for mapping and event scripting, and it is still gentlest way to introduce a person to a level layout.

Then later on game in 1978 the game Space invaders was created by “Tomohiro Nishikado” Space invaders was a two-dimensional game were you have to control a spaceship shooting at alien moving forward towards you. The whole was created and designed by “Tomohiro Nishikado” Himself.

There was not much of details for the level of this game. But later on when it was popular in the market Different version was released in 2D and 3D

In 1978 the famous game “Adventure was created in Atari. This game was created based on the text based game called as “Colossal Cave Adventure”

This game was developed by Atari and the designer of this game was “Warrenn Robinnett” the level designed in this game are simple maze where the players has to find the key get to the door by dodging all the obstacles and enemies on his way

In the Middle (1980-1998)

In 1980 The great game which is still played now was created. The game “Pac Man” It was the most best played in the earlier 80’s. The creator of the game was “Toru Iwantani” He developed and as well as designed the game fully. If you see level of the game is a maze which makes the game more interesting. This game was so popular that later on it manufacture again with more difficulty and designs

In 1985, the famous side scroller 2D game was created “Super Mario Bros” was created by “Shingeru Miramato”. He was a designer for Nintendo. The 2D level were very simple but yet realistic and nice at that time of gaming generation people played this game over and over and were still not bored of it. There were totally 4 types of different stages in this. The stages of this game had many obstacles and enemies which made the game more interesting

In 1993, the first fps (first person shooter) game was released. “Wolfenstein 3D” this game was created by using a Software called ID software by john carmack. The levels in this game are like mazes. Your main goal is to escape out of the maze like prison. The level designed in this are not that much detailed. Most of the walls and the ceiling have the same color. It was pretty difficult but the game was fun and really enjoyed by the users

The Change 1998-2009

In 1998, the game Unreal released and was a massive hit. The game unreal was created by epic games and was really famous for its graphics and sound effects which mad the game so realistic. The unreal released there unreal engine which was so much advanced and better compared to id software which created games like “Wolfenstein 3d, Doom” etc

If you play the game unreal you see that the levels are really scaring and the effects of the game are really incredible. Unreal boosted the expectations of 3D graphics considerably. Unreal was one of the first games which used detailed textures. When player stand next to an object or wall the textures detail will fade in and make look more realistic instead of showing it blurry like other games.

The lighting effects took time to develop but the result of it was incredible because the course of the development occurred during the emergence and rapid progression of hardware 3D accelerators. So , with the advanced software 3D render.

CHAPTER 2: Preparing for Research Survey

In this Chapter you will learn

• Researching about current gaming Generation
• Planning your Survey Research
• Preparing the proper question
• Research about games played and the market viability
• Preparing your Survey question
• Preparing your Survey Form

Knowing about current gaming generation:

Gaming generations are defined as the video games released from the day of existence till now. The generations are…

In 1970, the first generation also known as golden age of video games was the phase when people came to know the existence of gaming. This was the time when the first generations of consoles were released. For example the “Brown Box” these consoles got famous among the people because of the release of revolutionary technology. Then in the first generation the main frame computers were released. Later on the Home computers were introduced to programmers were they get to program simple games.

In 1977, the Second generation of gaming started was the earliest consoles were made. In this generation the video games were found on cartridges, with the release of the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES). The games were programmed and burned onto a ROM chip which was mounted on a cartridge which will be plugged into slots on the console

Three machines which dominated Second generation consoles are.

• Video Computer System ( VCS)
• Intellivision
• ColecoVision

In 1983, the third generation was the innovation of genre, in this period the different types of genres were introduced to the Market. Such as Adventure, Fighting, Maze games, Platform Etc. The gaming computers were introduced with basic programming environment and advanced graphics. The famous consoles of this generation were the Nintendo 8 bit console and sega masters console.

In 1990, the fourth generation was a change from transition from pixels to full 3D graphics and the rise of several new genres such as FPS ( first-person shooter) and RPG (Role playing games) . Mobile Phone gaming was introduced in this generation. Some of the famous console of this generation is the Sega mega drive and the super nes. The CD-ROM drives were first introduced in this generation. For the Pc games and Basic 3D graphics entered the main stream with flat shaded polygons which made the gaming more famous in this generation.

In 1993, the fifth generation gaming was full on with CDs and not with Cartridges. In this period lot of companies released console with 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. The fifth generation was famous because of fully 3D games. Transitions to 3D and CDs happened in this generation. Most of the Designer moved from 2D to full 3D genre games. Some of the famous consoles of this generation are Sony playstation, Sega jaguar

In 1998, the sixth generation gaming the gaming level was way beyond compared to the past were all the people switched to full 3D gaming and the rise of alternate controllers and also online gaming rises to prominence like online MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) were introduced. The rise of pc causal games such as Bejeweled, Dinner Dash which really addictive among the adults. Some of the consoles of this Generation are Playstation2, Microsoft XBOX Game boy Advanced Etc.

Since 2004, the current (Seventh) generation of gamers has taken effect. In the starting some of the handheld consoles were introduced with 3D graphics. (PSP, Nintendo DS) which was really famous among people. The Seventh generation of consoles was released by the well known companies (Sony playstaion3, Microsoft Xbox360 and Nintendo Wii) which is still famous among people and most played currently. Apple inc. enters the realm of gaming by bringing iPhone and iTouch. The computer gaming was way beyond imagination with high end 3D graphics. Famous company Nvidia Introduced the new 3D goggles for the feel of realistic 3D effect sitting at home.