Game Design/Development Articles

LeSwordfish

semi-trained quasi-professional
aa
Aug 8, 2010
4,102
6,597
We have a couple of places where we list reference images, but I thought that equally useful and interesting would be a place to share articles on game design and development or level design - since hopefully even outside TF2, it's a shared interest.

I'll start us off with this: an article about the creation of one of Splinter Cell: Blacklist's levels. Not the best game, I know, but a good article with some useful tips.

In addition, I loved this article by an Uncharted 4 Developer on what he did as part of development - gives you a real sense of the work done on a design team.

Post any you've found! (Or written!)
 

BenCo

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 30, 2015
242
135
This guy makes a lot of Blender tutorials and I probably learned most of my Blender experience from him. If anyone intrested to learn blender I would start with these tutorials.
 
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I dinne ken

Has currently had enough
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Apr 16, 2016
324
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Any of these are good, maybe a bit low level, but still useful. And generally the whole channel goes into things about game design.
 

Joshenkstone

L5: Dapper Member
Oct 24, 2015
208
184
There are these video's about level design for a dungeon:
 

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
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Sep 5, 2010
6,394
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The Art of Monument Valley - fantastic look at how Monument Valley did their art design for non-euclidean levels.
Designing Journey - the principles behind the design of journey. Great for those interested in the social aspect of gameplay design and mechanics.
The Art of the Witness - just great anyways.
The Long Dark & Community Influenced Development
Traditional and modern Colour Theory (if you're an artist, great if your doing Environmental Design)
Three Lighting Composition Principles - not great for Source, but generally good to know. Applicable to lighting design.
Super Mario 3D World's 4 step level design by Game Makers Toolkit
Titanfall: Expedition - Making of Swampland: Just a great timelapse that hows off how they did LD iteration. Look at how the big, overall design changed, and how the smaller, micro things changed.
How to Make Your Game Just completely Hilarious: The Stanley Parable (Because William Pugh)

I got more, but didn't save them to my YT playlist.

If you're starting out/novice, Extra Credits is a great place to start.
For more ambitious folk, Game Makers Toolkit is also great. I pop back to them every once and a while for reference/refresher.
 

Fantaboi

Gone and one day forgotten
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Mar 11, 2013
892
1,050
Something developed more for the Halo series, but the level design stuff featured here is a fantastic 101 place serving as a great introduction into level design.

So I present the 51 part series 'Forge Lessons:' Covering essential level design principles to understand when developing maps. With topics ranging from 'incentives/deterrents' and 'foreshadowing'
http://www.reachingperfection.com/p/forge-lessons.html

I gotta give this a re-read soon.
 

leprecan

L2: Junior Member
Feb 10, 2013
96
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This GDC video titled "Fallout 4's Modular Level Design" was really interesting to me. http://gdcvault.com/play/1023202/-F

I know with Hammer we aren't working with modules like in Bethesda's games, but there is a fair amount of talk in the video about the importance of grey boxing and prototyping areas with standard objects before you iron out the unique elements. They specifically reference recreating the Boston Library and working to nail down just what they had to have to convey the location, and what they didn't need.
 

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
aa
Sep 5, 2010
6,394
5,571
This GDC video titled "Fallout 4's Modular Level Design" was really interesting to me. http://gdcvault.com/play/1023202/-F

I know with Hammer we aren't working with modules like in Bethesda's games, but there is a fair amount of talk in the video about the importance of grey boxing and prototyping areas with standard objects before you iron out the unique elements. They specifically reference recreating the Boston Library and working to nail down just what they had to have to convey the location, and what they didn't need.
And conversely, from a while ago: Skyrim's Modular Level design http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Joel.../Skyrims_Modular_Approach_to_Level_Design.php
 

BenCo

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 30, 2015
242
135
Again I found a guy making tutorials for Gamemaker, a game making software. If anyone wants to learn to make some simple games I would definitely check him out. Also Game making softwares like Clickteam and Consturct which both have a free version have tutorials build-in. Just wanted to let you guys know if you are intrested in making some simple games!
 

Cartfridge

L2: Junior Member
Jul 29, 2015
74
141
Well, it's been a while since my last post with any value.

I think this video from EC regarding asymetric level design is worth discussing, even if you're not a fan of them I believe there's a lot of things worth discussing in their latest video. (also perhaps some aspects of map layout that go unnoticed by new mappers.)

 

Moth

L2: Junior Member
Jul 3, 2016
82
247
I feel like posting GDC video is too obvious. i watch a ton when I have time, if you don't already, do it, they're just amazing. one of my favorite video is the Diablo 2 post-mortem, where the diablo 1 and 2 director relates the experience of the birth of Blizzard North, developping both games and creating the action RPG genre, bet a lot of you saw it but here it is
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc


Extra credit, obviously. Best channel NA.

Didn't see game maker's toolkit mentionned. It's an amazing channel in the same vein of EC but much more focused on pure game design, with high production values. https://www.youtube.com/user/McBacon1337/videos

Gnomon is one of the top VFX school, they teach everything from concept art to all 3d skills to animation. Their channel has amazing dev interviews, similar to GDC but more geared towards game art and vfx. https://www.youtube.com/user/gnomonschool/videos
One of my favorite video from them is the interview of Glauco Longhi, Brazilian character artist at Naughty Dog, and his inspiring journey from learning the human anatomy while making movie props and costumes in Brazil to getting hired in a world class game studio.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uhOEFNSMW8


If you have a bunch of money to spend on video tutorials, the gnomon workshop website is great. They have great tutorials, from legends of the industry. Artisticaly I don't always like what's being done there (a lot of the typical photobasher concept artists come from them) but they have some videos from people like Syd Mead explaining how he imagines the futur through his paintings (he entirely designed and did many mate paintings for Blade Runner, was a concept artist on Alien as well...and made a CSGO skin? https://csgostash.com/skin/800/AUG-Syd-Mead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Mead LOL), disney animators, Ubisoft art directors...and they have a bunch of environnemental design and level design tutorials.
https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/

Can't get over the fact a 83 yo legendary concept designer actually made a CSGO skin.
 
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