Mattias Worch made a great post regarding his new Quake level that I found hit a lot of the same notes that I hear in my head when working on Quake stuff:
http://www.worch.com/2008/08/24/bbelief2008-level-flow/
The whole notion of planning levels out completely beforehand is a side effect of the modern game industry. It’s not a bad thing but it is a necessary thing. Games are too complex these days to let level designers try to wing it anymore.
I’m working on a Quake level in my spare time and I’m using the same methodology as I did in the early Quake days : start laying pipe and see where it leads. In those days, all you needed was a basic idea of the kind of environment you wanted or maybe all you had was a texture set that you wanted to try using. Maybe you had a cool idea for a room and the level sort of filled itself in around the edges of that room.
It’s fun to work this way as I believe it keeps the creative mind agile enough to still be able to interject spontaneous stuff into whatever scripted level you’re working on at the office.
Tags: Level Design, Quake