Game Design Essentials

CHAPTER 7

Designing Levels and the Game Design Document

Coming up with the idea for your game and deciding on the gameplay style, the narrative, and the look of your characters are major parts of game design. An important aspect of making the game is how you create and present the content and how players interact with it.

This chapter discusses level design, which starts by planning the world, what happens, and where it happens. Then you populate the world by determining where the action, key events, and cinematic locations for the game will be. Imagine you're leaving your home for a trip around the world. You'll want to look at a map to plan where you'll go and what you'll do along the way, including the points of interest you want to see, ...