BBelief2008 Level Flow

One of the fun parts about making this level is that I don’t have to worry at all about planning ahead. That’s the way of working that comes naturally to me: I never planned out my levels in the Doom and Quake days. I just started working on something and discovered where the level would take me.

You can’t do that in today’s professional game development, of course. When working with a team on a commercial game, things tend to be much more planned out from the start. Every level has a place in the game. The start and finish are usually predetermined. Certain story points need to be hit, specific gameplay elements need to be utilized. And things are so complex today, with several people working on the same environment, that the level needs to be roughed out as early as possible. So that the environment artists can start working on the building blocks. So that lighting artists (if the game has them) can start thinking about the look of the level. So that gameplay elements (which might not necessarily all be proven out yet) can be tested as early as possible – in the levels that they’re supposed to appear in.

Not so on this Quake level! The gameplay is already established; and I’m the only guy working on it, doing everything. That’s why I can finish complete rooms – architecture, lighting and all – before moving on to the next one. And see if that inspires what comes next. When I started the map, I had no idea what form it would take, or how the player would traverse the level. Working this way is a lot of fun – if you have the confidence in yourself that in the end, it will all have come together and connect perfectly.

Animation is similar in this regard, by the way: you can either animate “straight ahead” or block out the sequence first and proceed to polish it up. Straight Ahead is a lot of fun because you never quite know how the sequence is going to play out – you’re discovering the action as you’re working on it. But in a production environment (when working on an animated movie, for example), you will rarely have the chance to just animate on a whim. Much like a level, a shot that a professional animator is working on fits into a larger whole. The action needs to be approved, and the director and animation leads would probably like to see a rough-out of the scene before they commit to it, which means investing lots of time and energy.

Anyway, I think I figured out the level flow for BBelief2008 last night. There’s enough of the map now to do a mock walkthrough, and I know how I want the level to play out. It’ll be a pretty linear path – but with enough crossover and revisiting of familiar areas to keep the path entertaining (I hope). That’s a big step towards the final map, but I’m hardly done. I still have no clue about the start and finish areas, for example!

Trying to sketch in this path on top of the 2D views, I realized just how vertical the level is turning out. There’s 5 playing areas stacked on top of each other, and the player goes all the way up and then down. Hmm. Verticality, and the lack thereof in earlier levels… I think that’s a different post.