Level 2 Design: From Design to Game - part1

Mike created an application, Give Up Games Tile Editor, that allows you to paint a level in 2D, as if you were looking down at the level (bird's eye view). This means that on a 2D plane that looks like graph paper, Mike was able to color in the squares to create a layout for the level. The first image above is the screenshot of Give Up Games Tile Editor, after Mike designed the level.

Give Up Games Tile Editor supports unlimited layers, so you can paint the floor on a separate layer than the walls. You see that in the image because each layer has different colors. The screenshot above shows a zoomed in image of the factory area of the level. Different elements of the factory area are on different layers in the Give Up Games Tile Editor, so they are represented by different colors.

That is, on one layer in Give Up Games Tile Editor, Mike would lay out the floor (the dark brown area). Then he would create another layer to make the surrounding walls (the light blue area). In order to add a little variety to the level, he also created other floors (beige for the outside hallway, orange for a mezzanine, and salmon for the vent pipes) that would be elevated, the stairs to get to those elevated floors (the green stairs to the mezzanine), and a few other obstacles to throw in for fun (light brown for machines, teal for boxes, and red for conveyor belts). Each of these items would be on a different layer in Give Up Games Tile Editor. (The big blue blob with a red square was an area that  got left out of the game.) The hall-like area to the right of the factory doesn't have a floor, but has several boxes where the player has to jump in order to navigate safely. That became the furnace corridor.

Below is an image of the final version of the factory area, and it might make more sense.

When the two images are compared, you can see that the salmon colored area in Give Up Games Tile Editor is actually the pipe that the character has to run through, and the beige colored area is the hall where the pipe ends up. The dark brown is the factory floor, and you can see the other obstacles as well.

The next post explains how we go from a digital graph paper drawing to a 3D level. Read part 2 now.

(You can read THIS PREVIOUS BLOG ENTRY to see how these areas look from the player's perspective, and ANOTHER PREVIOUS BLOG ENTRY to see the factory area.)


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