Level Design: Concept, Theory, and Practice

Level design is the creation of levels locales, stages, or missions in a video game. Level design is as much an art as it is a science; it requires artistic skills and know-how as well as an extensive technical knowledge and is an extremely important part of computer game design. Good or bad level design can make or break any game, so it is surprising how little reference material exists for level designers. Beginning level designers have a limited understanding of the tools and techniques they can use to achieve their goals, or even define them. This book is the first to use a conceptual and theoretical foundation to build such a set of practical tools and techniques. It is tied to no particular technology or genre, so it will be a useful reference for many years to come. Kremers covers many concepts universal to level design, such as interactivity, world building, immersion, sensory perception, pace, and more, and he shows how to apply these concepts in practical ways, with many examples from real games.