5 ms·
The Level Design Book
- markus_zhang 1y agoUnfortunately level design has evolved into a complex indistrial process. The earlier days from DOOM to Half-Life was a lot more fun.
- deadbabe 1y agoNo worries, one promising use of LLMs is that we could describe a level someday with all its key features and just have it created fully formed, instantly! Imagine a game mode where you as a player can just describe what you want while the LLM builds something fun and challenging! I think in simpler games such as Doom this should be possible already.
- hexasquid 1y agoI can believe we'd get a level, but I'm not ready to believe we'd get something as refined as the undead burg (a case study in the book).
- monkaiju 1y agoAre you an llm?
- deadbabe 1y agowhy would I be an LLM
- globalnode 1y agouse of grammar and overly excited? (or are you trying to make a point? like look how bad LLM's are... hard to tell on the inet. or x2 are you trying to emulate an llm to see how many people you can catch?... its all so confusing now)
- deadbabe 1y agoI’m a human being
- globalnode 1y ago[flagged]
- iamacyborg 1y ago[flagged]
- boredemployee 1y agoI think the confusion is here: "...we (humans) could describe ..."
- hyfgfh 1y agothat's what a LLM would say
- sph 1y agoTrying not to mention LLMs in any Hacker News comment section about anything challenge (impossible)
- aio2 1y agolevel 9999 difficulty
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago"we could", but how many people can actually describe a level with all its key features? It's not this easy. In your other sentence you mention that the LLM builds "something fun and challenging", but how would an LLM know what fun and challenging is? You, the "prompt engineer", would have to do that. An LLM can only replicate what it already knows, meaning that level design would be copies of existing level design instead of something creative and novel. Sure, it can be done. But you can already generate levels and environments generatively. How is AI going to be better at it than a person that clicks around in the Unreal editor?
- nativeit 1y agoThat sounds awful. What’s the actual point? If you don’t enjoy level design, do something else.
- thesuitonym 1y agoSome people just can't understand that the process of making art is enjoyable by itself. They think the product is the hobby.
- user432678 1y agoThankfully there’s not enough money in hobby level design for AI slop investment, so this won’t happen.
- rochav 1y agoI keep seeing comments like this and can't help but feel like that would be like suggesting someone who makes pottery as a hobby could make it way faster by just ordering the vase they want from someone else; I imagine the fun part in this, as in many other hobbies, is making it, because if just want to play something someone else made, you can already do that, can't you? Maybe it won't be exactly what you wanted, but the LLM generated one won't also.
- blargey 1y agoThat’s just procedural level generation with extra steps. Why ask humans for input when you can just as easily ask the LLM to generate a list of key-features that would be received well by user_profile 400231862?
- sandspar 1y agoLevel design can still be an engaging hobby. In fact there's never been a better time to be a hobbyist level designer. Never before have amateurs had access to so much tools, education, and resources.
- LinuxAmbulance 1y agoExcept if you want to do level design for existing AAA FPS games other than Counter-Strike, the days where user maps and modding were allowed have come and gone long ago. There's nothing out there like there was for Counter-Strike 1.6.
- kridsdale1 1y agoGood thing those are still around. I had a blast making levels and sharing them in BBS and FTP servers 1996-2002.
- vkazanov 1y agoWell, there's always Trenchbroom + Quake 1 + community = the incredible, amazing Arcane Dimensions.
- userbinator 1y agoGame level design, to be precise; those who have been doing electronics and struggled with level-shifting between all the various standards are forgiven for thinking this was about something else.
- atoav 1y agoThat would probably be called amplifier design then, attenuating signals is a comparatively simple problem (although in RF anything that seems simple can become black magic wizardry).
- Cerium 1y agoAh, also not: "design of organizational job levels".
- stronglikedan 1y agoAnd here I was thinking it was about designing a tool one would find at Home Depot.
- mmooss 1y agoWho wrote this book? I don't see that information. The Internet is an odd place. Imagine a printed book without an author listed (even 'anonymous', which is a rare edge case). Imagine a non-fiction book without a clear thesis, and one stated up front. In addition, we are overwhelmed with information and options on the Internet in ways humans with only printed material couldn't imagine. We need these things - especially theses clearly stated up front - even more. I'm not willing to read things without it - I just have too much to read and too little time.
- Cyphase 1y agoThere's this: https://book.leveldesignbook.com/appendix/about https://book.leveldesignbook.com/appendix/about I agree it should be easier to find, e.g. an About link in the main nav.
- mmooss 1y agoThank you. How did you find it? For others: Core authors / editors ... Robert Yang is the founder of this project. As an indie game developer, he is most well-known for his Radiator games about sexuality and intimacy. In the past, he also contributed levels to projects like Black Mesa Source, and conducted interviews with level designers for Rock Paper Shotgun. (https://debacle.us https://debacle.us) Contributors ... Andrew Yoder has worked on Paladins and Warframe, and specializes in multiplayer social spaces and combat design.
- Cyphase 1y agoI clicked into the Overview from the Book menu in the main nav. That only shows the sections in "Book 1, Process", not books 2-4 and the appendix. Overview took me into the content, which has a sidebar; I scrolled to the bottom of that and found the link to the page. It took me a moment to realize it did show that info about the author/contributor.
- tonyhart7 1y agoI want create a game
- soulofmischief 1y agoLook around for game jams, short competitions where you don't have to worry about perfection and can just dig into the process of making a game. After a few of those, you'll have all the base skills you need to tackle something bigger.
- thesuitonym 1y agoOne thing I've never understood, as someone who only has a passing curiosity in game design, is how people learn from them? It always seemed to me that the whole idea was 'Here's a theme, make a game.' But if you don't know how to make a game, where does the knowledge come from? I get you can do independent study, but you could do that without a game jam. Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of game jams, I just don't understand why I see it offered as a learning experience so frequently, as opposed to a practice experience.
- zovirl 1y agoI learned an enormous amount from in-person game jams by chatting with other game developers at the event, most of whom were more skilled than I was. I've also found game jams made it easier find collaborators, easier to get feedback from other designers, and easier to see how other people approach the same theme. > But if you don't know how to make a game, where does the knowledge come from? If you're at the stage where you feel like you don't know how to make a game, you might find value in doing the exercises from the book "Challenges for Game Designers" by Brathwaite & Schreiber.
- soulofmischief 1y agoIn my life and career, I've found deadlines make the best mentors. In addition to the other commenter's great point about making connections and getting exposure to different paradigms, with a tight deadline you learn how to quickly research and implement new things, and how to make quick creative decisions. You learn when something is "good enough", and after a few jams you start to understand the holistic process of conceptualizing, actualizing, deploying and collecting feedback on games. After a couple years, you'll find yourself more knowledgeable than the average graduate in game design, and will either discover what you'd like to specialize in, or realize you enjoy and want to be involved with the entire process.
- mvanga 1y agoDoes anyone know if there is something similar for 2D platformers?
- nickledave 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44115494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44115494
- doshaa 1y agocool
- xdkyx 1y agoThere was a fantastic resource about Multiplayer Level design from David "DavidM" Munnich. Although done in Unreal Tournament context it was really informative. I don't know if it's still available (could not find it), taking into consideration it was hosted at the defunct planetunreal I doubt it survived.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoThat's the one I was thinking of too, but also, how relevant is that still today? "Levels" in various categories of video games have evolved far beyond the fairly basic arenas of the UT / Quake era.
- amlib 1y agoIn terms of geometry density (detail) they have definitely improved by many orders of magnitude but in terms of layout I think most games have actually gone backwards with vastly simple levels to navigate. That (exagerated) meme about level design in 2010 is still fairly relevant [1]. [1] https://imgur.com/a/LfZouTK https://imgur.com/a/LfZouTK
- hnlauncher 1y agoI think I found them on the wayback machine here: https://web.archive.org/web/20040603010041/www.planetunreal.com/teamvortex/davidm/tutorials.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20040603010041/www.planetunreal.... Are they the ones you're talking about?
- keyringlight 1y agoAnother one is Sjoerd "Hourences" De Jong, a lot of UE3/4 era stuff, which was around the era Epic made their engine widely available http://www.hourences.com http://www.hourences.com (no https on the site)
- nathan_compton 1y agoI need this for 2D level design.
- nickledave 1y agoSame. Anyone know of a similar book for 2D level design? Some random search results: - https://www.tadeasjun.com/blog/2d-level-design/ https://www.tadeasjun.com/blog/2d-level-design/ mostly talks about Celeste - GDC talk from Maddy Thorson linked from that post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RlpMhBKNr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RlpMhBKNr0 - previous HN post (original link seems to be dead) with links to other talks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20177157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20177157
- rendaw 1y agoNot a book, but Cave Story is interesting because the first areas in the game are too large and shapeless, but later areas are very well defined. I feel like the author went through some sort of level design progression while making the game.
- nickledave 1y agoFound this paperwork on a framework for platformer level design: https://eis.ucsc.edu/papers/smith-sandbox-08.pdf https://eis.ucsc.edu/papers/smith-sandbox-08.pdf
- Sharlin 1y agoI've been reading "Level Design: Concept, Theory, & Practice" by Kremers. It's a dead-tree book, and more of a theoretical treatise on all kinds of level design concepts, tropes and patterns rather than a hands-on guide, but might still be of interest to you.
- diggan 1y agoSeems a lot of it applies to 2D levels too, I did some quick skimming and didn't see anything that jumps out as not being applicable for 2D levels. Anything in particular that seems very 3D focused? I know the images happen to be 3D, but most of it is basically the same for 2D.
- mentos 1y agoI often wonder if game level designers now play it too safe much like the movie industry does with its proven plot points. I think about classic maps like de_dust being the Mrs Doubtfire of game level design..
- ChrisfromLees 1y ago"the Mrs Doubtfire of game level design" I love that line
- diggan 1y ago> about classic maps like de_dust AFAIK, de_dust (and de_dust2) were hastily thrown together by a young amateur (not in a bad way) map maker, not a professional and carefully designed + user tested level. So maybe what we need more of, are designers and developers throwing shit together with less analytics behind their choices? It does seem like the more data-driven a decision is, the safer but also more "boring" it becomes.
- feoren 1y agoYes: there are no "average gamers". Everybody gets something different out of games, and the beauty of early HL1 online play is that there was something for everyone. Severs that were AWP-only playing sniper-focused maps; servers where AWPs were banned. Servers that only ever played de_dust; servers that only played crazy user-made maps. Team Fortress Classic and Counterstrike and HL1 Deathmatch and Science & Industry and so many more variants that I've forgotten playing. And what one player wants to play changes with their mood and the phases of the moon. As long as there were at least 9 other people interested in what you felt like messing around with in that instant, you could do it. If you make a game based on average metrics, you get a single, average experience. If you make a game for the average player, you make a game for nobody. (Although you do seem to make a lot of money ...)