An exercise The following was an exercise I did in 2020 as part of the @JFGnorD' #leveldesign challenge on Twitter. I don't remember exactly what the challenge's theme was, but this is what came out of that. The Castle Hohenwerfen Castle is a medieval rock castle situated on a 623-metre precipice overlooking the Austrian…

I’ve been re-reading Daniel Cook’s article on Design Testing lately, specifically this bit: “Cowboy Designers: Copy cats with a hip attitude […] They shoot from the hip when it comes to decisions, relying on their own finely tuned sense of ‘fun’ to design systems and create requirement docs. …

I've been talking a lot about the importance of molecular design patterns in level design. (It's imperative to consider molecular structure when working with open-world content, various degrees of variety in thematic and gameplay); however, I have not talked about why working with them is essential. What is the core…

My situation: I’ve been playing Breath of the wild for a couple of months now. I just hit my 40-hour mark. I was very sceptical initially because I didn’t seem to wrap my head around its simplicity, but it is starting to grow on me as of late. I was sceptical because…

I decided to return to Night City. Building space, in some ways, can lead to confusion if we ignore the fundamentals of orientation. I think that’s what makes Night City so interesting. It’s committed to breaking all the rules to support the narrative of the game. I am not going…

This entry explores the relationship between player and environment in natural spaces. It applies to most open-world games that offer a naturalistic approach to their world (Far Cry Series, Death Stranding, Zelda Breath of the wild, → I am looking at you) Affordances — Player and Environment

A look at Liberty City — Portland Island Paths, Nodes, Landmarks, Syntax. It has been some time since I played this game and I must admit, my relationship with the GTA franchise has never been very strong. …

And how to make it compelling The 40 Second Rule When thinking about the scope, size and distribution of your encounters in the open world you will have to consider the time between encounters. This tends to vary from game to game. This matter is highly dependent on Player speed and Map Size, since…

A look at New Bordeaux — Downtown District. — It’s no secret I love Mafia 3. It’s one of my favorite open world games out there. In this article we will discuss a few details about how the Downtown district is composed and why I think it’s an excellent study case for open world design in terms of orientation…