I hate to start a post with a cliche, but environment design is a backbone of game design. There can be no characters, but there should be an place for a game to take place. In fact, environment in a way is a character itself.
Anyway, the rules of environment design.
1. All assets should be consistent in style. If you create decide to make everything look antique, you can't half of the assets as futuristic unless, of course, this fits in this particular setting.
2. Modularity. In most cases the same assets can be re-used many times during the creation of the level. It would be insane if you had to produce every single detail to be used only once, like in real life. Too much time and money would be required to produce such a decent game. And system requirements would be of a super-computer. So we have to use everything again and again.
3. Measurements and proportions. As Cliff Bleszinski from Epic Games once said - "Use the f**king grid!" Seriously, assets must be of proper size and stay like this when scaled to work together. This is probably a sub-set of modularity.
4. Think about player's perspective. Completed level may look great from top, but is it good if player is supposed to walk on the ground? Also, we must always take the paths he will walk into consideration, but this is more related to level-design.
All other rules of game-design also apply. Do not bother making stuff that will not end up being seen by the player. Stay within the budget. Wash your hands before the meal. Yes, I guess this is it.
Anyhow, my environment design project. I think of making a strategy game based on ants. Some strange, alien ants that live in a world like Cameron's Pandora. Maybe something like this:
I'll keep you posted.Anyway, the rules of environment design.
1. All assets should be consistent in style. If you create decide to make everything look antique, you can't half of the assets as futuristic unless, of course, this fits in this particular setting.
2. Modularity. In most cases the same assets can be re-used many times during the creation of the level. It would be insane if you had to produce every single detail to be used only once, like in real life. Too much time and money would be required to produce such a decent game. And system requirements would be of a super-computer. So we have to use everything again and again.
3. Measurements and proportions. As Cliff Bleszinski from Epic Games once said - "Use the f**king grid!" Seriously, assets must be of proper size and stay like this when scaled to work together. This is probably a sub-set of modularity.
4. Think about player's perspective. Completed level may look great from top, but is it good if player is supposed to walk on the ground? Also, we must always take the paths he will walk into consideration, but this is more related to level-design.
All other rules of game-design also apply. Do not bother making stuff that will not end up being seen by the player. Stay within the budget. Wash your hands before the meal. Yes, I guess this is it.
Anyhow, my environment design project. I think of making a strategy game based on ants. Some strange, alien ants that live in a world like Cameron's Pandora. Maybe something like this:
No comments:
Post a Comment