FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION

Core Mechanics and Level Design

Most video games for consoles and personal computers present gameplay in sepa­rate levels (also called chapters, missions, or scenarios, depending on the genre), each with its own set of initial conditions, challenges, and termination conditions. Level designers plan, construct, and test these levels, as Chapter 12, "General Principles of Level Design," discusses.

Ordinarily, the level design specifies the type, timing, and sequence of challenges that appear during play, whereas the core mechanics specify how different chal­lenges actually work. When a level starts up, the core mechanics read the level design data from a file, which includes: the initial state of the game world for each level; the challenges, actions, and NPCs for each level; and the victory conditions for the levels (see Figure 10.1). If the game consists of only one level or creates ran­domized levels, the core mechanics must also include mechanics for setting up the level before the game first enters a gameplay mode.

Therefore, your design for the core mechanics should specify how challenges work in general but not exactly which challenges each level will contain. As you design the core mechanics, concentrate on those features of the game that will be needed
in more than one level, and leave special-case features found only in a particular level to the level designer. It may be that the level designer can create code for those features using a scripting language and won't have to ask the game's pro­grammers to do it.

This doesn't mean that you can push all the work off onto the level designers, though. Think of the features you create in the core mechanics as being like LEGO blocks that the level designers will use to build their level. In a war game, the core mechanics, not the level designs, define how all the units in the game move and fight. Once you design all the units, the level designers can use your information on how the units operate to construct exciting levels featuring those units.