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Communication Lab 11
Level Design (Assembling)
Due: Friday, March 29th at 10:10 am
The focus of today's lab is to continue the level design work that you did in the
previous communication lab. In the previous lab,
you identified building blocks (also known as design patterns) for your level design.
Now it is time to put these together into a single lab.
While this is going on, the TAs will be circling the room and occassionally giving their
own feedback on your discussion. If anything is unclear about this assignment, or the
document in general, please ask them. They have been through this process before (some
of the TAs have done this multiple times).
Lab Format
If you are unhappy with your building blocks from the
previous communication lab, feel free to spend the
first part of the class coming up with a few more.
However, we want you to spend the majority of the class time creating an interesting
level. You can do this by arranging your building blocks in a sequence. With that
said, the best design takes place when you can combine building blocks together
simultaneously. We gave several examples of this in commercial genres in the
previous lab.
That is all we have to say -- make a level. To give you some idea of what to do, here
are some examples from previous semesters.
Winner of Most Polished Game in the Spring 2014 Showcase,
Dash
has incredible level design. Look at how they put everything together in this document.
This document also shows that you do not need fancy art for your level design, so a
quick sketch during lab is very possible.
Winner of Most Innovative Game in the Spring 2014 Showcase,
Ribbons
is a platformer where the player controls both a character and a ribbon threaded throughout
the level. The ribbon allows players to move platformers toward them instead of relying
only on jumping challenges. The intermediate level here is very solid, and a good show
of what this game was able to accomplish.
Another popular game from the Spring 2014 Showcase,
Beck & Chuck
was an action platformer where the player could throw a returning ball. It had several
standard platforming challenges like jumping and wall climbing. With that said, the level
design was very smooth and it kept the action going at all times.
Critique
Due: Friday, March 29th at 10:10 am
The lecture the lecture immediately following this lab is a critique session. We want you
to present whatever you have done in the past two labs in class for feedback. There is
no official document for level design, so this is the only time you will get any feedback
from us outside of your milestone demonstrations.
You have a lot to do this week if you expect to finish alpha before leaving for
Spring Break. Therefore, we are not expecting you to do any work outside of lab.
Finish what you can in lab today. On the day of critique, bring whatever you finished.
If the blocks as incomplete, that is okay. But please make an effort to complete as much
as possible during class.
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