Environmental Issues

 

How do level designers construct and decorate the environment to assist navigation through the level?
 
The environment of a game is the base of the pyramid, which the assets and characters sit on top of. It’s the most important thing when it comes to producing a decent game, because the environment of the game has to make you believe you ARE that character and that you ARE in space (or anything other world/environment).

 

To an environment designer in the games industry, it is vital that you treat your level/world the same as if you were designing a maze, because you need to know where to go, how to escape and even find, shortcuts to get there or get out of there! The designer also needs to think about of the game and what the player sees through the eyes of the character. So depending on what kind of genre of game you were designing, you would look into setting, date and time of the event or fictional world, lighting and most importantly atmosphere. Games of this time and age have a story to tell through their environment, some even mix the reality of past or future events with fictional complications. Another element to consider is making levels that gradually get more difficult and testing, so you won’t find the player getting bored or completing the game in a day! That creates a bad game and bad reputation *cough cough* Fable 3.
 
How does the environment influence the atmosphere of the game?

The environment must be extremely relevant to the plot of the game or character (if the game is about one person or event). You need, as a level designer, to create a good atmosphere within the game, because you want the player to go through all emotions and facial expressions when they play. For example, I’m playing “Dead Space 3” I wouldn’t want the sun to be out and a slight wind blowing flower petals across my face! I want a distressing experience, with little natural light, caverns and tunnels with no exit, and messages written in blood across the walls of the level, doesn’t that sound better than the first option!? As a player you want to be in a new world where nothing is impossible, making the environment as realistic as possible, but keeping some stylisation throughout, this will create steadily flowing levels, with a huge amounts of interest, that’s if the player actually stops and takes a break from fighting “necromorphs” for example.

Is there a balance to be struck between realism and stylisation that supports or hinders the player’s belief in the game world?

I think there is a very slim line between realism and stylisation in the environments of games. Stylisation is a key factor in a game, because you need parts of the level to be an assist to the character such as having messages/symbols on the walls. If you apply those types of assets to the majority of the levels, players will start to use their surrounding world more often, there for bringing the environment into play, making them notice the place they are walking though. On the other hand a good level designer needs to know where to put the realistic factors into the game and how realistic do they want to make it! I have played a wide selection of games in my time, and as the years have gone by they have got more and more realistic, which is great, but sometimes you want the weird and wacky to still exist. For example “Modern Warfare 2” is based on real world events, WAR. And most of the environments are real, a level on the game is called “Afghan”, where do you think they got that from, Afghan……..istan. There was a lot of talk when Modern Warfare was released that it was a mockery of real soldiers and how they perform on the battle field. So I think when you have stylisation and realism to pick from, have half and half, because otherwise the game will be too truthful and real or so un-realistic it’s given a “U Certificate”.

 

Illustrate an example of an Environment you particularly like – who designed it, what real life equivalents does it pay homage to, does it reference existing film or literature genres?

 

If I had to verbally illustrate a particular environment, it’d have to talk about the underwater horror-show, which is Rapture from Bioshock and Bioshock 2. Steve Gaynor was the level designer for Bioshock 2 (which is my favourite out of the bioshock trilogy), he worked closely with a level artist who comes up with the sketches of the stylisation of the levels. In terms of real life equivalents, there are lots of people dedicated enough to make props and even short films from “Rapture”, but there are no real environments like it! However there is a blog online, which mentions that, the PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel, wants to build an underwater or floating city. So Bioshock is not really based on existing places but it might inspire something REAL to be made from it.