Designing a level with emphasis on verticality: utilizing procedural tools to streamline production
Ketola, Jenna; Faruku, Kristian (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025120532736
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025120532736
Tiivistelmä
Nowadays, games employ various modular and procedural workflows in their development, which affect areas such as level design. It is paramount to the quality of the result that level designers and technical artists work together to solve challenges related to production speed, optimisation, and visual consistency while maintaining a high level of artistic quality. By combining creative vision with technical precision, these two roles ensure that complex game worlds can be developed efficiently without compromising on immersion or detail.
The object of this thesis was to investigate the technical and design considerations that are essential when designing a level with emphasis on verticality. The authors also investigated how procedural content generation (PCG) could improve production efficiency and help with level design.
The research methods used in this study were qualitative, consisting of content analysis and a case study. Invaluable insight about how major game studios structure their development pipelines and integrate procedural tools within level design workflows was gathered by analysing other games. A case study was used to serve as a proof of concept, allowing the authors to test and apply these methods in a personal project.
The study shows that implementation of procedural and modular workflows can initially be time-consuming to set up, but grants an immeasurable versatility and efficiency to level designers further in the production of the levels. Although careful consideration needs to be made during the planning and pre-production stages, to ensure that the design goals are being included in their implementation.
The object of this thesis was to investigate the technical and design considerations that are essential when designing a level with emphasis on verticality. The authors also investigated how procedural content generation (PCG) could improve production efficiency and help with level design.
The research methods used in this study were qualitative, consisting of content analysis and a case study. Invaluable insight about how major game studios structure their development pipelines and integrate procedural tools within level design workflows was gathered by analysing other games. A case study was used to serve as a proof of concept, allowing the authors to test and apply these methods in a personal project.
The study shows that implementation of procedural and modular workflows can initially be time-consuming to set up, but grants an immeasurable versatility and efficiency to level designers further in the production of the levels. Although careful consideration needs to be made during the planning and pre-production stages, to ensure that the design goals are being included in their implementation.