Aesthetics ................................
How a level looks and sounds are probably the driving factors behind many level
designers’ work. And it’s easy to see why: surface aesthetics are always commented on
first by management, the press, or even players. I certainly would not dispute that a
level’s appearance is crucial to its overall success. At the same time, however, the aes-
thetic component becomes a problem when how the level looks becomes the
designer’s primary concern, a situation that usually has a detrimental effect on how the
level plays. Suppose a level designer spends a lot of time creating a massive, gorgeous
cathedral for a level, and the appearance of that cathedral is constantly at the forefront
of her mind. What if it turns out that the cathedral is hard for players to navigate, the AI
agents easily get confused when trying to pathfind though it, and the whole structure is
a bit more than the engine can handle, resulting in the level running slowly? If the
cathedral looks great and its construction sucked up a lot of man-hours, who will want
to cut it? It may translate into some fabulous screenshots on the back of the box; too bad
it will not be any fun to play.
A big part of the level designer’s job is to balance appearance with the other
requirements of a given level, as I have listed above. There is always an achievable mid-
dle ground where the level looks good, plays well, renders quickly, and suits the needs
of the game’s story. Level designers spend a lot of their time learning the “tricks” of a
given engine or level editor. What can they do that will use the fewest polygons while
still looking good? Often the solutions they come up with are not necessarily “real” but
rather “faked.” Of course the whole purpose of creating levels for a virtual world is cre-
ating “fake” content, so a level designer need not worry if an effect is achieved by
“faking” something. If players cannot tell it is faked, if they cannot see behind the magic
curtain, that is all that matters. One of the principles behind all special effects is to cre-
ate something that looks like something it is not. The level designer’s job is to make
players see something that looks like something it is not, giving the level whatUnreal
level designer Cliff Bleszinski would call “schlack” and that others call “chrome”: a
shiny and fancy coating over an otherwise uninteresting level. Shiny and pretty is not
necessarily a bad thing, it just should not be used to substitute for quality gameplay.
The visual side of a level can have a big impact on the other concerns of a game’s
level, as I have listed before. For instance, in order to make a level playable, the tex-
tures on a level should be laid out in such a way that players are able to see where they
should or should not be able to go. Instead of wondering if a particular slope is too steep
for their game-world surrogate to climb up, a different texture can serve as a visual cue
to the players as to which slopes are passable and which are not. Lighting can be used to
conceal secret areas, or a big puzzle in the level may be figuring out how to turn the
lights on. If certain special areas are supposed to be rewards for diligent exploration,
making those special areas look impressive is essential to maintaining the players’
interest in the level.
A lot of time can be spent on the aesthetics of a level. The amount of time is directly
proportional to the complexity of the engine and level editor being used as well as the
desired visual effect of the level. In fact, it may be the case that all of the gameplay and
story elements of the level can be set up first and then the visual appearance can be
tweaked for weeks to come. Lighting can be endlessly adjusted, textures can be shifted
Chapter 23: Level Design 459