Monday, April 25, 2011

Spore Level Design Considerations

IIn Galactic Adventures in spore, the amount of experience/whatever points is determined by the number of people who have played it and their ratings for it. This makes the level design and enjoyability of the level even more important than ever. A good level should usually have some kind of coherent plot, preferably something that would engage player’s interest.

The scenery is also very important, if there is an appropriate amount of scenery present in the level, the level is also appropriately decorated, and the flow of it is coherent, then it will, with luck, become a far more popular level than it would be otherwise. If there is some kind of atmosphere that is desired, then you, as the level designer, must commit to it completely, otherwise you tend to have a jumbled together level which puts off the player.

The creatures used in these adventures should be used only where their designs are appropriate, unless it is designed to be a parody. If you have a planet which is designed to be a Buddhist monastery, you should not have dino-Jesus, unless of course he is trying to convert the creatures to his religion. It should make sense that it would be a bad idea to mix things that have no connection to each other in the plot. another example, if you have a cyborg invasion, you probably don’t want to have a bunch of Vikings defending, unless of course you can justify this as the cyborgs invading the Viking planet, which would probably be an awesome narrative if you don’t mind me saying so.

Overall, the entire thing should work like a well written book, if you are writing about Vikings and Jesus, then you have to find a way of justifying their coexistence, even if it in itself does not necessarily make sense to begin with. Either way be creative, but finish your ideas, don’t release a halfway realized level, finish it before you present it to the world in all its glory.

There was a single amazing level which I played which explained basic molecular biology, it was incredibly creative, it was done really well and if you can make any introduction to any subject, then do so; people will learn about it.

These tools were made for the spore player to use because EA realized that the kind of player it brought was overflowing with creativity. Spore will continue to exist as it is mostly player driven, and as long as the players still have ideas, there will be new content to be found for it.

Please, I implore you to make a Dino-Jesus level which follows Dino-Jesus through the new testament, it will be amazing, and probably do fairly well.

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