Nothing official only my opinions. Some past Game Level Design: AvP2, NOLF 2, Suffering, Six Days in Fallujah, Prey 2, Mafia 3, Bioshock 4, Palia, and more!
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Joined January 2012
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Visit my Substack Curious Gameworlds for my latest game dev insights 🛠️
🌐 curiousgameworlds.substack.c…
Nathan Cheever retweeted
Mafia 3’s New Bordeaux went through more than 30 major layout iterations.
Veteran World Designer Nathan Cheever breaks down how pathways, landmarks, infrastructure, factions, world states, and rapid prototyping can turn an open-world city into a believable place.
“If you’re making a city or village, treat it like a character. It reflects the citizens, the history, and therefore is connected to the game story itself. It has strengths, weaknesses, shows its age, but still has wonder to witness.”
Read his deep dive: 80.lv/articles/hidden-design…
Nathan Cheever retweeted
Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. Veteran World Designer Nathan Cheever (Bioshock, Mafia, and more) explains how traversal speed, encounter density, and hidden production costs determine the right size for a game world.
Full deep dive: 80.lv/articles/veteran-game-…
For a city, this has a ton of verticality. How much does it break if the player deviates from the desired path? Does the target hang out around a corner or is it an immediate fail and reset? I'll be curious what the routes back up are like and how many routes down there are.
FWIW, I just realized this is more of a bespoke serious of fat corridor or small sandbox levels rather than a big open world game. This makes missions have more controlled gameplay moments like God of War or Uncharted than Spider-Man or GTA.
youtube.com/watch?v=u45AUkEl…
Which Designer does what and when during the project? For example, who should do Activities vs. Side Stories?
Here’s a breakdown how Mission design (Level Layout, Campaign Story, core Combat) can work semi-parallel to World design (Region Layout, Systemic Systems, NPCs). Shared content is a fuzzy topic though...
curiousgameworlds.substack.c…
A tip of my hat to the great, fellow city architect Konstantinos!
The amazing @NathanCheever on Mafia III's New Bordeaux and how to avoid the “cartoony theme park” feel: curiousgameworlds.substack.c…
What's the first few things you should do when designing an open world? Give this a read:
Creating Open World games can be challenging. They not only have to satisfy an expected, high-quality campaign story with spectacle & flare, they also have to support return visits for a variety of situations and systemic events.
curiousgameworlds.substack.c…
Nathan Cheever retweeted
What's the right size for your Gameworld? - Part 3
open.substack.com/pub/curiou…
This is the first in my series of articles about helping your team understand the desired size of their gameworld.
Ways to help your team pick and visualize the size for the playspace, Part 1!
curiousgameworlds.substack.c…
It's been a while since I've shared insights from the world of game development. I rebranded and reformatted my entire website to Curious Gameworlds. I'll be sharing articles and videos aimed at helping designers and productions discover their best ideas for engaging players.
Have you ever wanted to know what it takes to design a fully-realized gameworld? Konstantinos is one of the top experts on our world! Consider his course to get a step up over others when architecting memorable cities.
Designing Cities for Video Games, my game urbanism and city building course, is returning May 9. Updated and expanded with one extra lesson!
Enroll now to get an early bird 10% off & use promocode SOCIALCITY for a further 10% off.
Join the class▶️ d6learning.com/course/design…
Monolith was in its second iteration as a ragtag creative crew when I joined their AvP2 team then onto Nolf2. The success of AvP2 helped keep the studio doors open as they shifted strategies. It's sad to see it go, succumbed to corporate choices.
TeamAVP2
Me watching the majority of people over the next 2yrs realize their choice made things worse for them.
Here's some more samples when I was invited to discuss my approach and the complexities designing cities for video games; Edge Magazine 375 and 'Levelling Up Planning' a dissertation by Matt Prescott.. #gamedev
Over 2 decades ago I made this for an #Avp2 level that was never released. It's exciting and freaky to see this on a small physical scale.
youtube.com/watch?v=jQ3zi5er…
Re-creating the hypersleep chamber, in miniature, from ‘Alien’ --> The @NFTSFilmTV's Model Making and VFX students combine to re-create this iconic movie scene. Explore the work with a ton of bts pictures and video at @beforesmag beforesandafters.com/2024/04…
