Level Design: Concept, Theory, and Practice

Great book on the core basics, developers of all kinds can learn from this. A must have if you're a jsut starting out developer. Wish I had read this years ago!

This showed up on time and in great condition from the seller. Very helpful book that was suggested by my professor. Unlike alot of game design books, this one doesn't talk about game design and then become all about explaining one particular game engine. It's really just about design, which is a nice thing!

Good

Great shipping speed item is perfect.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad book. It's a good reference for those starting off as level designers who want to get a strong grasp of game design theory minus any real practical applications (exercises). However, it is not what it makes out to be.There is NO level design theory here, but rather, existing game design theory that has been *applied" to level design. That's nice and all however, it really adds nothing new to the theory of game design let alone level design. You can find all this theory in other books or via articles as published by Gamasutra.As the author wrote this book as a level design resource, acknowledging that there is very little in the way of level design theory. Well, just reinterpreting existing game design theory isn't really a good foundation to start from. As that has already been explored in depth before.

Edit: I'm bumping 1 star up because I took the time to read slower and understand what the author was writing. I actually wanted to prove him wrong by jumping back-and-forth chapters to see contradictions. But after a couple of days writing notes in the margins (and this is one great thing you can do with the book), I came away knowing what kinds of ideas go into bulding a believable map. It's still not an ABC "Build from inside out", or "Tackle the models first" book, but it gives me a great understanding of what the world can be about, where it is, why it's there - and I reckon building a solid foundation first in level design is way cooler. I am required to do some thinking from myself, so I'll bump up to 5 stars when I finish it.===old reviewA down-to-earth guide on building levels. I think the cross-references work. Although this doesn't instruct how to start building levels when opening up your editor for newcomers. This book helps when you can already build quite large levels already, but get stuck with what to do in them.

Dieses Buch befasst sich sehr intensiv mit vielen Basics des Themas "Leveldesign" jedoch ist es mir, als studiertem Game-Developer, etwas zu oberflächlich, daher ein Stern Abzug. Der Autor geht auf sehr viele Punkte ein, allerdings gibt er hierfür zu wenige Beispiele. So ist es sehr theoretisch und kann Neueinsteiger verwirren. Alles in Allem ist es einen Kauf wert.

For a theoretical overview over the field of leveldesign, this book is definitely the right choice. The author himself offers a lot of knowledge and the quotations he gives are usually worth following for a more in-depth view on things.