‘Thematic consistency’ describes a sense of unity in a piece of art. It is very important in level design. The worst and most amateurish type of thematic consistency is simple: no thematic consistency. These levels draw visual vocabulary from many different sources and mix them haphazardly. This is common among beginner level designers. These maps [...]

I’m just finishing up my latest baby: Europe Sniper. I made this level on contract for Close Quarters Combat by Groove Games. Almost all of the assets are there, though there were really very few assets appropriate for a European theme in CQC. I was just getting so damn sick of industrial concrete jungles and [...]

I did this sketch last night. Pencil and paper, worked up in Photoshop.

In order to design games, we need to be able to evaluate whether they will be fun or not. Given a description of a game, it is good to be able to know whether it will work before we create it. This post addresses a common naive method that is often used for evaulating unproduced [...]