Three Inspirations for Creative Level Design by Paul Warne While Level Designers can learn a lot from classical and contemporary ideas in structural architecture, they are free from many of the constraints of real world builders and architects. Paul Warne presents the works of three great visionary designers and architechs to inspire new thoughts on the nature of spatial design, and consequently new ideas on particular aspects of the art of level design.

GDC 2001: The Architechture of Level Design by Steven Chen and Duncan Brown The bar for the visual quality of environments in games keeps getting higher. To meet that bar and push it even further will require the integration of real world design skills as well as a keen sense of gameplay and game design. Attending an architectural design or any sort of design school is of course not absolutely necessary to be a good level designer, but it can help widen your scope of experience. Architectural Design and Level Design are two very different pursuits, the point is really to investigate how looking beyond traditional and often overused game design references and approaches can help to bring an added dimension to the experience of making and playing games.

Great Expectations: Building a Player Vocabulary by Brett Johnson As level designers, we can carefully build a vocabulary of game mechanics and shape what the player knows about the environment - and when they know it. When the player pushes a button to call an elevator, they expect the elevator to arrive. Imagine their surprise when the elevator suddenly comes crashing down with a group of screaming scientists on board! Players come to your game with a vast amount of knowledge adn expectations that you can use, as a designer, can use to your advantage.

Where's the Design in Level Design? Part One by Tito Pagan If you are a game level designer or artist who wants to create 3D interior levels that stand out and get your product noticed, creating a well-designed, believable environment is a sure way to do it. Play-balancing aside, real-time gaming "worlds" of the recent past, made up of planar-surface corridors wallpapered in repeating patterns that show off their pixel components, should be put away bearing a label that reads "For Nostalgic Purposes Only."

Where's the Design in Level Design? Part Two by Tito Pagan This isn't a "how-to" tutorial on designing, modeling, or texturing a game level. Instead it is a collection of considerations to help you with a more efficient execution of good design for your level modeling and texture work. As promised last time, I will also walk you through the steps of prequalifying level assets so that you can avoid making costly mistakes, thus saving you time and money better spent elsewhere.

GDC 2001 Interview: Paul Jaquays by John Mclean-Foreman Paul Jaquays has been designing levels for id since 1997, but he's been making games (video as well as tabletop) since 1976. Paul discusses the Game Developers Confernce, getting along with programmers, and ongoing PC versus console debate.