[game_edu] Teaching Level Design

[WEARN Nia H]

Sorry to catch onto this thread a little late, but I've busy tweaking
our Level Design theory lectures to check in on the list - the irony
isn't lost on me.

We have a strong element of Level Design in the first year of our
Undergraduate Degree - we've separated out the theory and the practical
so they spend a module in each semester (12 weeks of study - so 24 in
all) looking at 'Games Engines and Physics'. In previous years we've
focused on Single Player Maps with Hammer and Multiplayer Maps with Team
Fortress 2 (last year) and currently UnrealEd. Next Year we'll be moving
solely to UnrealEd - and swapping the two focuses around (multiplayer
first semester, single player 2nd semester) - Hammer has some nice
aspects to it, but it's unwieldy and updating it can cause major issues
- it's also looking a little old now.

For the theory side they look at the effects architecture, flow,
circulation, theme, style, harmony etc have on the player in a level. We
also look at wider aspects and level design in different genres
(Platform Games, Multiplayer Games etc). We look at industry pipelines,
planning and visualizations in Google SketchUp.

In later years we leave it more up to the students to explore engines,
there's a module in different aspects all the way through (animation,
lighting etc) and there's a group project in the 2nd year of study which
requires something in engine at the end of it. I think the only area we
really fall down on is RTS games. We discuss balance in levels etc but
we haven't found an easily accessible engine to put it into practice.

On the subject of books probably my favorite is 'Designing
character-based console games', Mark Davies, ISBN: 1584505214, 


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