Unit 14 - Working Freelance In The Creative Media Sector : Task 3

Chosen Path Of Interest: Level Designer

Video Games Design & Production Management.

Future Career:

A Career, I am interested in within the video games design sector, this is a level design which includes array of many different skills and needed to work to a high standard on this role and the skills are need includes:

Skills:

Ability to communicate effectively with other designers, management and peers in other disciplines. You will be part of a multidisciplinary pod and must be able to work well as part of a collaborative team without losing sight of the game play vision.
Must have experience within the community or for a shipped title with RTS Single player or Multilayer map development
One or more published AAA titles in an level design capacity
Game scripting experience using Kismet or similar visual scripting system
Experience working with terrain mapping tools in a level editor

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/jobs/creative-assembly/south-east/england/uk-and-europe/senior-level-designer-id84222

Entry Requirements:

You will need a requirement of a degree from a university, preferably in a video games design based degree like for example Computer and Video Games - Salford University: http://www.salford.ac.uk/ug-courses/computer-and-video-games-with-industry-placement

The experience seems to vary from job to job but it seems to be roughly around 3-4 years of experience is required for the job in this field and the salary wage is from the ranges between 15k to 30k, with the average being around 20k depending on the position.

What does it involve:

Being in the level design business is all about working as a team and with the artist and developer to help and create their vision of a level or game. Team work is key to this and you need to work with them to understand, each other and working well together to make a level. As a team you can be influenced by other arts in the games but you must also consider the environment, if you want to make something realistic landscapes or views, being inspirited about a game could be a good thing to get ideas from other people. Or going out in places to get better views and landscape, maybe visiting new places to study from, but this could all be done and use for research to create your own imaginary levels. Some games are also very unrealistic so you need to have a really go imagination at the same time on working with this project. Maybe a developer wants a level where everything is made out of different weird materials, with that you could work on with the artist to create this imagination. A lot of games are also in 2d platforms and where you can see the 2d side scrolling level from the side, you also still have to think about the game mechanics and how the level can be made and design. Maybe for the character you could make them do something unique or different, you have to take this into account when creating these types of levels, you need to adjust your levels and environment to this game play mechanic such as making some platform higher than it's standard also making the game utilize the controls. Some designers may also be involved in making player having to feel from an environment, for example if you are making something scary like a horror game you would want a player to feel scared on each movement from the character, so being afraid from the dark and senses and surrounding. this is where you once again have to work with the artist and the others in designing this process and with the sound designers, you have to look at the level and find horrifying and scary about the game and find a suitable music. Then this is going to make a player feel really scared and tense whilst the goal of a horror game is coming to life, so as you can see this would involve a lot of teamwork as I explained in level design you have to consider on creating your own skills and imagination.

http://caveingame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/LevelDesign_04.jpg

http://www.born-robotic.net/content/sf_maps3.jpg

https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAa3AAAAJDJhNzRiMmM2LTRiOWUtNGY0Mi05NjU2LTMyMGExNTNmNTU5NQ.jpg

Additional On Level Design:

Being a level designer is all about teamwork, that is the main key about this is with th artist and developer on helping each other to create their own vision of a video game, you have to work with them to understand what they want to put their minds to the game and what they will do, if you work well in a level, a lot of level design can be influenced by the art that is shown in the game, but you also have to consider the environment if you can make a realistic area like city or landscape, then this would be to go out and get different views and inspiration, this could be used for a location in your game, and it's the same with the other environments some uses places from real life to make their game, they might felt inspirited about the place or it could suit their story line that they want to show. You have to carefully show this, once this is done you can use these research to create your very own levels.