Title: Week 12 - PRACTICUM GAME DESIGN, ROOMS & LEVELS
Course: RITA MC - GAME DESIGN > Section: Module 3

- Chapter 12 - Begin Your Personal Game Design

Read Section 12 (Rooms)  in the GameMaker Studio Online User Manual
You have now completed the BASICS User Manual
Time to read more about the GameMaker Language Code (GML)
Time to get busy with your personal Game
Submit your current gamestory
Submit a sample of your sprites
Submit a copy of at least 3 of your own sound effects (ogg or wav files)

These submissions should reflect your previous brainstorming and plans for your game design. But with edits and refinements.

Take the Chapter Review Quiz

Take the Module 3 Exam (M3E)

More about ROOMS or GAME LEVELS:

Rooms may be the equivalent of a game LEVEL. Good level design is about providing players with new and interesting challenges.

This chapter is a good chapter to introduce you to LEVEL Design-concept, history and its evolution. Consider the topic of game genres that you studied earlier and how they relate to level design.

When you are structuring your rooms or levels in GameMaker, consider this: It can help to focus your game design, good structure gives it a clearer identity, and if you try to include too many different types of features, you run the risk of creating a confusion of ideas with no identifiable strengths.

Many times, you will start your game design out with the intentions and ideas of multiple level design. And with each level advancing in its complexity and/or difficulty, the designer realizes that there are many ways to approach the design and purpose of a game level. All players should be able to complete EASY levels. Design these for players who have never played a game of the same genre before. Most players should be able to complete MEDIUM levels. Design these for casual game-players of this genre.

How would you define a level?

It is a part of the game where the player interacts with the world that was designed. It is also a way to work modularly. Computers have limitations, and one of those limitations is holding an entire game in memory. Creating levels allows the computer to load up a chunk of data, making levels an excellent way to be efficient in a behind-the-scenes sort of way.

Even though there are an endless number of games , with many genres and much diversity, game levels all share the same basic features. Most levels involve the following ELEMENTS:

- Setting
- Goals
- Risk and Rewards
- Challenges

SETTINGS- Settings is like the environment where all the game activity occurs. For example, a war game level might begin inside of a prisoner-of-war camp, and all of the assets for that level would be loaded into the computer memory. So all of the walls, bars, backgrounds, and weapons would be loaded into this level of play. Once the player is free of that level, he moves to the next level– let’s say flight in a forest. All of the interior level assets are purged from memory, and all of the new environment is loaded. This all results in more fun because there is no lag in the game.

GOALS-Every level has some goal or objective to reach. This, in turn, is determined by genre, and what type of goal is sought. So, it might be to remove all of the guards & open doors and gates, to clear the first level and escape to the forest.

RISK AND REWARDS- This is the flow or balance of a game. The big, burly guard might block access to the keys to the cellblock that is closer to the exit strategy. Or, you can avoid the big, burly guard and go the long way around to get to the same end result. Risk and reward must be balanced or the player might become frustrated, or even bored with your game!

CHALLENGES- Incorporating the use of logic and ingenuity into your game to resolve a puzzle or a problem is an inherent portion of an enjoyable game level. The aim of good level design is to slowly introduce new challenges and features into the game at a rate that keeps the player in stage two of the learning curve.

A level designer’s job is to verify the flow and balance of a game through the efficient design of various game levels, environments, worlds, rooms OR levels.

When designing and structuring your game levels, make an overall plan from the start, create a well-structured level plan, and realize you may need to swap a few complex ideas for simpler ones.