GROUP PROJECTS

LEVEL DESIGNER

RICKARD FJELLVIND

ABOUT GROUP PROJECTS

Half of the time at The Game Assembly, the students make 8 games together.
First of all, this gives us great knowledge of how a production process for a game, can look like.

Second, since we are making games from several genres, this gives us broad knowledge about the challenges and difficulties in many types of games.

A team consists of 2-3 Level designers, 3-5 Graphical artists, and 4-6 Programmers. The last projects also include 2-3 Technical artists.

YEAR TWO

In the second year, we keep the same groups throughout all projects. The main reason for this is that our programmers are building the game engine from scratch.

YEAR ONE

The four first projects have been a great learning process on how to work with other disciplines to create games together.

#6 - Hack and slash

#4 - Adventure

#2 - Shoot'em up

#5 - Space shooter

#3 - Platform

#1 - Point and click

Flowchart of my contributions and cooperations in game project #6 - Hack and slash

MY CONTRIBUTIONS

I've always enjoyed organizing a group, so I have often been given/taken a coordinating role along with my role as a level designer.

LEVEL DESIGN COOPERATION

In every project, I and my level design colleagues have worked closely together. We often iterate on each other levels and have an open discussion on what's good and bad. To be able to take and give feedback and then iterate on those thoughts is very important for my development as a designer.

SPRINTS

This is a summary and an example of how my contributions and cooperation can look like in different stages of a project.

PREPROD

Creating documents regarding the game and its mechanics, for other disciplines to refer to.

Blocking out the levels to get a feeling for basic movement and camera angle.

ALPHA

Build the levels using assets provided from the graphical artists, and communicating problems back to them.

Request variables from programmers, to be able to make quick changes while playtesting.

BETA

Playtest the levels and mechanics and iterate these from the incoming feedback.

GOLD

Playtest levels and mechanics.

Finalize levels and metrics.

WORKING WITH OTHERS

To work in a group could sometimes be a great challenge. I've had the opportunity to get a lot of practice in earlier workplaces regarding this, so I tried to implement my knowledge into the game projects.

In the early projects, it was greatly appreciated with a bug report document and setting up dependencies and deadlines for each discipline.

COMMUNICATION

To be able to communicate my ideas to others, in a clear and distinct way, is very important to avoid misunderstandings, especially to avoid unnecessary extra work.

I really enjoy making documents which others can refer to when they want to know the answer to specific questions. The challenge is to keep those documents up to date when new decisions are being made.

TIME ESTIMATING

There are so many dependencies in a game project but as long as you take responsibility for your tasks and can estimate your tasks, it goes a long way.

The ability to ask for help and inform the team when something isn't working is also crucial. This way the team can make decisions whether to cut something out of the game or reprioritize.