Good Level Design

Best individual levels?

Bump for non-slapped together shit.

Can't pick a favourite from Quake. I love all the levels.

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This level was my favourite from all the hitman games. Just fun

Fuck that place.

I love thief but absolutely disagree about the sword. The concept of the level is good, it does a good job introducing the pagan themes, and there are some specific clever aspects to it, but it's just too fiddly and doesn't hold together well. It does more than the mechanics of thief are capable of handling, and it's too long for its own good. The level tends to get too much praise for what it does well.

Take the part in your screenshot. To get there after you drop the sword you have to get through a marble floor hallway with multiple triple-guard patrols. So you just spam moss and flash bombs, and are very likely to have to savescum.

Its literally the devils house fam
You can get in and out in a couple minutes when you know where to go and where all the loot is.

Good point, I see now how stupid that sentence sounds. Unfortunately, even if thematically it makes sense, it didn't make for good gameplay for me.

Obviously. It's a relatively straightforward level full of a lot of unutilized space, which receives a lot of praise because it disguises how straightforward it is with abstract imagery. Once you look past the twisted hallway and the upside-down doorway and see them as just a hallway and a doorway, the spell is broken. There are much, much, much better levels in The Dark Project.

Nigga that was basically every shitty first person jumpscare game ever. Though it gets points for coming out a million years before all the youtuber bait jumpscare games, so it was a precursor to cancer I guess.

Life of the Party > The Sword

It's like you don't like fun and don't play the game as it's intended.

So many thief bros in here.

I was thinking on making levels for Doom, Thief, Quake, etc (whatever games that are good and old, because I'm running on a potato). Are the building tools usually easy to learn? Because I have no programming skills, but want to try to create my own thing.

Doom wads are pretty easy and fun to make.

Do Dark Mod please. It's a fan recreation of thief.
More people need to know about it.

you need to know about it

please please give it a chance, it just wants to love you

This game have one of the best level design I saw in the past few years

Tried that game, it ran like shit on my computer.

Correct, and most of the time when I get into trouble I try to escape, otherwise I wouldn't even appreciate the alerted AI routines. But I confess to having savescummed on fiddly sections - either because of fiddly jumping or excess of guards, e.g. in 'Kidnap'.

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I played it since 2014. I runs a lot better now, especially if you disable AA.


I used to play thief an darkmod that way too, but it's a lot more fun to ironman imo.

You really feel the adrelanine in your balls, bro.

So here I am,

doing everything I can,

Life of the party always felt real finicky to me, the AI does some weird shit sometimes and can get very frustrating when you're playing without saves.

Lights out!
Guerrilla Radio!
Turn that shit up!
THPS2 soundtrack > THPS1 soundtrack.

It does in both of the Thief games, the AI cheats in both alerted phases.


No Honor Among Thieves is the best level pack

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Level design is one of the things I can't apreciate in a game.
What makes a level a "good" level?
Which games have good level design?

My favorite levels are ones that aren't necessarily large but give the player a lot of options and freedom as to how to complete the objective. The atmosphere, textures, and everything else technical is also important. In more linear games its mainly about how memorable it is, t the architecture, enemy placement, etc, the original doom is an example of good linear level design, doom 2 is a worse example because there was much less though put into it.

If the level is memorable and has a good flow but doesn't make the player feel hindered (except to say 'that isn't correct,' whether it be subtle or direct).

Dark Souls compared to Dark Souls 2 is a good example. Dark Souls 1 had bonfires that usually had only one way in or out when they're first encountered. As the level is explored further, you eventually find shortcuts back to that bonfire. It creates a landmark, a safe haven, and when the player can transport, convenience.

Meanwhile, 2's level design is just plain bad in comparison. Nothing makes fucking sense in some areas. One area starts in a spooky poisonous cavern, leading into a valley full of poison, where you fight enemies that either surprise you or poison you, and the area directly following that has an elevator ride upwards that somehow is surrounded by lava. The DLC did a far better job of it, with areas having either multiple layers or the same style of bonfires with multiple paths to take.

Why did it change my name to Todd Howard?

The second part is more of a worldbuilding concern than one of checkpoint placement.

For a more direct example, rhe first bonfire of Earthen Peak is placed behind an unavoidable pool of poison, unavoidable until you remove the poison later on in the level, at which point the checkpoint becomes useless because of your progression. The next checkpoint is barely three minutes away past the miners, another checkpoint isn't far behind that one near the windmill. The only opportunity to open a shortcut isn't to cut back to a previous checkpoint or make your way around the area more smoothly, just to get the chance to see part of an NPC questline.


Were you telling sweet little lies?