I think that to be a good level designer you need both because you want the players to be in awe of what there looking at because they use games escape reality, they don’t just want to see some dust bin in the corner they want to see massive towers like the citadel from half life two visible to the player throughout the level

But they also need the game to flow there is no need in having great scenery if the game is too choppy from the low frame rate

You can’t have enough flow in a level but yet you need to be immersed in the game

Sometimes you won’t even notice the amazing scenery in the game because your fighting through all the enemies and exploring the level

Also the level should never annoy the player like putting stupid jumps in that the player dies a lot at or hard to find takes or quests anything annoying to the players should be removed because if you have difficult jumps hard to find items and over the top enemies the player will die too many times get annoyed and curse the game never to play it again. it ruins the flow of the game

In conclusion to make a good level designer you have to get it bang on in the middle because too much scenery high frame rate and slows the game down in overall game play.

But on the other hand people need something to look at otherwise they don’t get immersed.

What is a digital architect?

A digital architect is someone who designers levels for games they use there skills in levels so much that they need to think like an real life architect

They reason there called digital architects is because they make amazing buildings scenery and the whole 3d environment just as a architect would make a cathedral or an opera house in real life

But they create it in virtual reality so they are called digital architects

Moore’s law means for future digital architects is that they will be able to make even better landscape than crisis ever dreamed off they will get better and better until they are life like

Moore’s law mean they can make everything on a whole new scale meaning more of everything

Also the more people will be needed to make a level meaning that there will be a lot more digital architects meaning that the need for digital architects will be a lot less so they will get paid less and wont get work as easy as they used to as the market will be flooded

Also there will be a need for prop designers to make things in barren space they used to use ‘clutter’ to make environments more life like chairs and tables and so on.

Level designers are glue chefs because

They are like chefs because they will get all there ideas together getting all the ingredients and make something special whilst following the guidelines of the design document ‘recipe’

They are glue because they make everything come together they make the ideas of the maps come together in the end

They are the glue because they are considered some of the most important people in the design process

The level designer take everybody’s hard work and puts it all together they take the texture made by the artists and places them in his level or asks the artist to creat a custom piece of work for his level he will figure out where to place the enemies of the level that was created by the programmers and the 3d artists while everything is being rendered by the engine programmer

Peer criticism is great if the level designer ask someone for criticism they tell them what they think is wrong and thus making the level better they could be told something by the criticism that puts everything into a new prospective and give the level designer new ideas on how he is going to make the level

Criticism is good because it makes the product better

i think that for a good level design they need to plan everything before hand but when they come to the level design keep there mind open for things that could be improved or completely changed you never know when your going to get a enw idea whilst making a level so why restricted yourself to what you thought up 2 weeks ago

good things can happen in the spur of the moment

so I think they it should be planned because they will make the level better get rid of a lot of bugs and make the level a lot more fun for the player but keep some improvisation in as well. Because they could just have an epiphany and realise how to make the whole level better