Level Up.pdf

Everything I Learned about Level Design, I Learned from Disneyland 209
Disneyland, in particular, proved to be a source of great inspiration. I read
about Walt Disney ’ s imagineers and how they went about designing their
own world. Walt Disney had a deep love of miniature railroads and
Disneyland was structured around a train track. The imagineers needed
something to fill in the middle of the track, so five “ lands ” were created,
each inspired by Disney ’ s passions: history, progress, nature, his animated
movies, and nostalgia for his childhood hometown. These became
Frontierland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Main Street.
The imagineers filled these lands with attractions; themed adventures that
allowed guests to “ ride the Disney movies. ” These attractions were built as
storytelling experiences within a physical space, and detailed attention was
given to each scene as the guest passed through it.
I noticed that the creation and structure of Disneyland bore a strong
resemblance to creating and structuring a video game world. The basic
progression of creation is this:
Disneyland: world to land to attraction to scene.
Video game: world to level to experience to moment- to - moment gameplay.
The world of Disneyland contains many lands. Within each themed land are
attractions, each with their own story. The “ story ” of the attraction is
composed of scenes.
The world of the video game contains many levels, each with their own part
of the story. Within each themed level are experiences to move the player
through the level. Connecting these experiences is the moment- to - moment
gameplay which keeps the player engaged.
This notion of working from the “ top down ” helped me approach a game
world and determine what the confines are and what lives within it; to
determine that, you need to make a game world map.
Some designers really got into creating their world map and loved to share
it with the player. A common pack- in with early computer games were
lovingly rendered maps printed on parchment, cloth, and even faux leather.
But you don ’ t need to create anything so fancy. Your world map can be
something as simple as a flow chart created in Visio. It only needs to chart
out where the player is going and what he ’ ll find there. A map can also
define the spatial relationships of locations in the world: this can help the
designer determine how the player is going to get around and in what order.
The game world map is important not only to help your team understand the
connection of all the levels to one another, but offers the player several
advantages as well.