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ENCORE: Flow, Feedback, and Fun: The Pillars of Great Level Design with Jack Burrows
33 Plays3 days ago
What does ambition really look like inside modern game development?
In this episode, Greg sits down with Jack Burrows to unpack how level designers think, work, and stay motivated across massive franchises and creative constraints. From AAA pipelines to indie dreams, this conversation explores how great games are built through framing, intention, and small wins, not ego or crunch culture.
Jack shares firsthand insight from working on major titles, breaking down how big ideas flow from leadership to designers, how constraints actually unlock creativity, and why great level design is more about flow and emotion than visuals alone. Along the way, they dig into ambition, burnout, discipline, and those rare “wow moments” that stick with players for life.
This episode is a must-listen for level designers, game developers, creative leaders, and anyone curious about how worlds are shaped to guide players without ever saying a word.
🔑 Key Topics Covered
- How developers learn to “turn off” their designer brain and play like real players
- Why ambition can fuel creativity or become a curse if unmanaged
- The difference between freedom and guidance in level design
- How studios pass big ideas down while still empowering individual creativity
- Why constraints are essential for great design
- How small wins build long-term momentum
- Using environment, flow, and shape language to tell stories without dialogue
- What aspiring designers actually need to learn before entering the industry
⏱️ Key Takeaways & Timestamps
00:02:40 – Willpower Is a Limited Resource
Jack explains why creative energy must be managed intentionally and how small daily wins help sustain long-term ambition.
00:14:30 – How Ambition Shows Up in Level Design
Ambition isn’t about scale. It’s about taking something familiar and flipping it just enough to reignite player curiosity.
00:21:05 – Why Constraints Create Better Designers
Great leadership gives creatives a frame, not half-finished ideas. Knowing the box is what allows designers to thrive inside it.
00:27:25 – Teaching Players Without Telling Them
Jack breaks down how games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution use visual language to guide players naturally.
00:48:00 – Letting Environments Tell the Story
Using examples like BioShock and Halo: Combat Evolved, Jack explains how emotion, scale, and atmosphere replace exposition.
🎮 Games & References Mentioned
- Metroid Prime
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Marvel Rivals
- Gears of War
- Skyrim
- Balatro
🎧 Why This Episode Matters
This conversation isn’t about tools or engines. It’s about craft.
It’s about understanding players as humans, designing with intention, and finding joy in progress rather than perfection. Whether you’re building worlds, managing teams, or just trying to stay motivated in a creative industry, this episode offers grounded insight from someone deep in the work.
Recommended
Transcript
Festive Greetings and Community Engagement
00:00:00
Speaker
It is the week of Christmas, and we want to wish you and your family happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year's, Happy whatever you're celebrating. Thank you so much for spending some time with PlayerDriven. We want to wish you the happiest of holidays and a really great New Year. We are running an Encore episode again. i know we've had a couple in a row, but we do have new ones recorded. We are just waiting for the turn of the new year to release them, and we're redoing everything at playerdriven.io. If you are looking for ongoing education, how do you become a community manager? How do I get into game design? How do I want to do this? Come join our Discord. Come join our
00:00:35
Speaker
our website, come hang out with our group. We'd love to get to know you. We'd love to meet you. We'd love to hear what you do for a living. ah You can check us out at playerdriven.io.
Spotlight on Jack Burrows and Game Design Passion
00:00:43
Speaker
We are listening to Jack Burrows. He is one of my favorite podcast guests that we've had on the podcast. We've had him a couple times. He is big in level design and the way and passion he has when he comes to talking about games is second to none and no better way to bring in the holiday spirit than just listening to Jack talk about games. I hope you all have a great rest of the year and enjoy this episode. Please leave us So any love, if you would like this, share it, let someone to know about it, or just come join our Discord and hang out with us. We hope to talk to you again soon. Have a great rest of the year and enjoy the episode.
00:01:19
Speaker
but i just love the things you're already saying. and like i can cut this up but i guess I used to work with a lot of people who are in movies and they're just like, I can't watch movies anymore because I know how this works. And like this angle is just bothering me. I'm just like,
00:01:33
Speaker
Turn your brain off, man. Enjoy the movie. i don't I don't know what to tell you, but I imagine the same thing in gaming. If you see a level that you you love their design or you see something off, it's just like you pick up on it. Yeah, and it sometimes it I don't think it can derail the whole experience, but you can definitely be disappointed because if you see it wrong at one point, my mind starts to wonder, okay, well, where else is it am I going to feel like they did wrong?
Balancing Passion and Personal Life in Game Development
00:01:57
Speaker
right like In the Dead Space remake, only because I have... an unhealthy obsession and comprehension of the first Dead Space to the stupidest, most minute details.
00:02:09
Speaker
When I played through the remake, there were moments where i was like, i wish that they had done this differently. Now I'm going to be curious where else they've done things that I won't like as well. Right. Because if they offend you once, it's like, surely this is in this 12 hour game, there's going to be somewhere else that I'm going to have a disagreement of perspective.
00:02:27
Speaker
um But no, you can still turn your brain off. I feel like that's a skill, right? You still have to be able to turn off the developer brain because you the point is to perceive it as a player. yeah Like if we're going to make games for players, we have to play games as a player so that you know the expectations that you would have if you were sitting there with a brand new game.
00:02:44
Speaker
Doesn't get so tough with time? I mean, right. I now have two kids, right. And like, I love to play games and yesterday I'm excited about the game awards. I'm sitting here like, shit, do I jump on this game and play a game with my friends or do I watch the game awards? I'm just like, I'm going to go play this game right now. But like time becomes such a. Sure. Sickle beast. Yeah. I think from what I've seen and especially from the devs that inspire me the most,
00:03:10
Speaker
I mean Thaddeus and Cliff Schultz, the two of them, I love shouting them out because I could praise them all day. The degree to which they can give themselves to work that they are passionate about on top of a day job and on top of family life is – Incredible. I mean they they're hard studies. They're hard students. They really, really teach themselves new things in ways that are profound. and They're both family men.
00:03:37
Speaker
you know They're both family men with day job responsibilities, family responsibilities, and I'm just regularly impressed by their ability to manage time. with heated, devotion, passionate labor. They labor to make themselves better in the time that they can, um which I'm trying to get better at myself. I'm trying to set apart time like that because I don't got those time frames time constraints yet. And for me, I have the time, but it's a willpower challenge. I think i don't think people talk about that enough right because willpower is a resource that you have to spend day to day, and it can be easy for that to –
00:04:10
Speaker
you know, get distributed to all the other things and then you get tired from those things and you want to relax. And so you, you spend the chips that you would have spent creatively or learning something new, right? It's hard. you know, that's just life though. It's the same So just so you know, we're trans, this is already the podcast that's happening. So, so what you're talking about this and it's great. And this is what you said. And this is our our third
Personal Productivity and Creative Dynamics
00:04:30
Speaker
question here, right? is Sorry. the ambition No, it's great. yeah And you wanted me to go in order, but you're the one that screwed it up just for the record. but Small wins are important, especially when you need that willpower, those small wins saying, I did this today. I started, I'm ah unemployed now, right? I started tracking down my time and I'm working more now than I was while I was working. Like I started tracking down everything I'm doing, something I always hated doing, but I was so curious, what am I doing with my time? And it's just like, all right, today I spent four hours doing this, three hours doing this, like,
00:05:02
Speaker
Those are wins to me. These are things that like, all right, well, maybe I didn't move the needle or maybe I didn't conquer Rome today, but I moved the needle. And those small wins, I think are super important to keep you motivated and keep you going.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's so true. when When you talk about like Thad and Cliff with family life, do you feel that trickle down to the rest of the studio?
00:05:27
Speaker
I don't see it show up in a way where they're pulled away or distracted from what they do. I think it just it's inspiring because what they do, they do it for the love of the game.
00:05:38
Speaker
you know like they They do it not for even just the game that we're working on, but they're... personalities, their character as a creative has to come out.
00:05:49
Speaker
It it that demands that they make time for it. And it's so cool to see it manifest in a community project with Counter-Strike custom maps or something, or doodling an Unreal to you know play around with new mechanics and things that you dreamed up.
00:06:05
Speaker
And it's like, well, this isn't going to exist unless I sit down and do it. And when people make the effort to do that, it's inspiring. And so it does trickle down into the day-to-day where I see the same drive that they'll do on their own in the day job, right? Like this is an interesting challenge. This is a tough problem. This is a roadblock in our production. And there's a tenacity to which they'll get after it. They'll push after it. And it's it's really motivating, i think, for everyone around them, which is really cool.
00:06:35
Speaker
I'm guessing I'm thinking more like, and I don't know the proper way to word it, so I'm just going word it, is like, does it feel like it's less crunch? Does it feel like it's more of a relaxed environment? Because someone like that knows how to manage the expectations of both a family and a lot of, I keep saying family, but it would be a busy lifestyle versus the workhorse style. So they kind of know how to manage that. And does it put keep a little less pressure off of the rest of the the teams?
00:06:59
Speaker
It can, yeah. There's definitely a degree to which... um Once you know – I guess what do they say? you know A man who rules himself is greater than a king. So if they know how to rule themselves in their own world, then they can share that – not like an aura or some touchy-feely thing. But like like you said, like they know how to plan. They know how to schedule. They know how to distribute their effort and distribute their attention in a way that removes panic, removes stress. And it becomes a pragmatic, this is what has to get done.
00:07:28
Speaker
Here's the kinds of you know attention it's going to require which should take this long. And once everyone's aware of that, everyone understands the stakes and and what's at stake and what's required of us, then it's just a matter of doing it. I love that phrase. It's just a matter of doing it, right? Because once you understand it, then you just got to do it.
00:07:44
Speaker
that That totally alleviates stress. And those kinds of minds, those kinds of characters that do have that skill to manage themselves and in their time and the busy lifestyles or whatever – When they come into the office and things can get heated or can get frustrating, they keep a level head so that you know the day-to-day can keep going.
00:08:02
Speaker
It's interesting. I've been thinking about this point for the past few weeks and I don't know how how I deal with it. is I've been told by multiple people that I'm too nice and I'm happy with that. I like to be nice. I'm a nice person. and I was like, well, people like to work with nice people, but then I've watched a lot of sports right and you see coaches that are jerks and that they have very strict routines, very strict routines and people don't like them, but they get results. They get results. so Clearly,
00:08:32
Speaker
being an asshole, ah not all the time. Right. yeah I guess it's more of the system, right? Like, I don't know. Does does greatness have to come with people pushing?
00:08:45
Speaker
Pushing. Yes. But not being a jackass about it. Um, I think there's all kinds of greatness that's manifest from whether or not it's a good thing, I don't know, but from political manipulation in a studio, right? Like so much of making games is political. I think like most any team activity is that requires stakeholders and different minds and a hell of a lot of money.
00:09:06
Speaker
And people have ideas that they think are compelling and they think will succeed and people might disagree with those ideas. And so, There's a lot of moving your weight around personality wise. And everyone's ah everyone has to be a salesman at you know at all times, like every person on that team, whether you're a concept artist or an animator or the producer, like you are pitching at all times. You're always pitching. You're pitching a schedule that you think is correct. You're pitching a deadline that you think your engineering team can achieve. You're pitching a mechanic that you think is going to push the game forward. You're pitching and a concept art you just drafted based off of the requirements given to you from the director, right? Everyone is selling and selling and selling all the time.
00:09:49
Speaker
And I think greatness can come from any one of those places because it's it's not so much how much you can swindle people or talk someone into it. But because the great ideas can surface, right? And bad ideas can surface. So sometimes you can oversell something that's not great and it can get a lot of dough and a lot of attention and end up falling absolutely flat.
00:10:08
Speaker
And so it's it's not necessarily a measure of the results, right? It's like you'd think that the – how do I measure greatness? Well, it did it result in anything good? Well, how do we define the results, right? is it Is it the financial success? Is it the fact we made enough to make the next one? Or how many great ideas die in a cold, empty cave, right? Like the ideas themselves and even the execution can be excellent, but it doesn't mean it ah it will generate the results that the world might recognize or that business might recognize.
00:10:35
Speaker
And sometimes that gamble plays out, right? Like the Baldur's Gate guy was talking about at the Game Awards. He says, make a game that you want to play and make sure the developers are having fun so that you're not focused on pushing market share, but you're focused on making games and mechanics that facilitate the good design, that that tell the story you want to tell, right? that All those sorts of things, I think, can be the roots of greatness. I don't know It sort of feels like rambling, but... No, there will be great characters within any team like that that are going to concentrate on that. Or like the art might be really great the game and everything else sucks.
00:11:09
Speaker
Right. So there was greatness in that capacity. But I don't know that there's a universal way to measure it necessarily that works across the board. I think there's plenty of ways to measure, you know, greatness and great individuals and their motivations and their execution and their ideas. there's all kinds of you know ways that that can that can land, that that can settle. And I think the last place that it lands most would be, you have to be XYZ to do that. You don't have to be a dick or a jerk to do that at all.
00:11:36
Speaker
I think it can come from all kinds of places. like It's an interesting conversation of what is success,
Level Design: Concepts, Execution, and Creativity
00:11:41
Speaker
right? If you're a AAA game, right? If you're Marvel Rivals, what is success compared to a Manor Lords or a small indie title that that came out, right? You have different expectations, different goals, right? The indie guy sells 50 copies of his game.
00:11:55
Speaker
They might be thrilled. They might be super happy. right That might be their victory. Whereas you guys, right you you might just want to be in the hands of X amounts of people. And it's a different moving target for the different level. And it's a weird place, especially with so many people creating games now. and It all comes down to funding. Who can get money to actually get their project to the end, the finish line? Who has the community built up to help kind of build and push this type of stuff? There's so many different...
00:12:20
Speaker
fact I imagine like a build-your-own-character type of screen where you can say, hey, where do you want to how do you want to spread your audience and game? and I don't know. it's ah It's a wild, wild world. world It is. Well, we are here talking with Jack Burrows. He is a level designer at NetEase. I don't know how we start this podcast now. It's already started. Jack, thank you so much for coming back. Is there anything you just want to say? I mean, you've been talking, but anything else you want to say? Yeah. No, man, I'm happy to be here. Man, I'm just I'm on fire after watching the Game Awards. My heart is swollen with joy.
00:12:52
Speaker
What a time to be in the business. I love how much of the pain points were called out, how much of the glory of the industry was celebrated. i mean, just a beautiful time. All those awesome trailers like that's the best part of this industry. is There's always goingnna be something new as long as we've got human imagination.
00:13:08
Speaker
And it it just never fails to disappoint year after year. As soon as there's a big show, whether it was E3 or you name it, man, it's like it's just this huge swelling tide comes right back up. So whenever the the industry feels low and there's you know like a dry season of games, you know that there's a million people cooking up new ideas, new concepts, new new adventure all around. So I'm just fired up.
00:13:29
Speaker
I'm with you, man. Seeing Witcher, seeing Borderlands, seeing new stuff from from just tons of studios. it's It's definitely a good time, and hopefully some of these games come out. and mean They gave some some release dates, so we got a new Elden Ring coming out in March. Crazy. We got crazy so lot of new stuff coming up. Yeah.
00:13:47
Speaker
Today, we wanted to focus a little bit more in-depth on level design ah and kind of how you take a look at that world. How do you build it up? So we're going to try and pick Jack's brain as best as we can as someone that's a novice at this stuff. And the last time we were here we kind of talked about your dreams and your dreams were if you were...
00:14:10
Speaker
in this position 10 years ago, walking on stage at E3, but now maybe it's the Game Awards, right? And how do you get to those dreams, right? And what's the daily grind in creating these immersive levels? So let's talk about ambition. How does ambition manifest itself in level design?
00:14:30
Speaker
That's a great question. um Ambition is a fascinating thing, man. Over time, I've wrestled with different seasons where it can feel like a really crushing curse.
00:14:42
Speaker
And at other times it can feel just like an endless trickle of kerosene on the fire of your heart, where it can be something that, you know, you've talked about something to so many people and you've built an identity around it. And,
00:14:57
Speaker
it's fun it gives you power to wake up every day, to get out of bed motivated, you know not just to so to slunk out of bed and sort of go about your day-to-day and grab a paycheck and things, but like a hunger for greatness.
00:15:10
Speaker
I think it's it's such a powerful, emotive way to you know progress your career, to to visualize where you want to be and where you want to go. um And the way that that can manifest – in the career and in a career is you know as as broad as the horizon, specifically as a level designer where I've found myself, you know because I do dream of that. I want to be walking across some big showcase stage, presenting a game that I've birthed out of my mind and built with an incredible team.
00:15:38
Speaker
And so as a level designer now, working on something like Marvel Rivals, you know what's that trajectory sort of look like? And so the question becomes, if I want to be ambitious with my designs and with my creative expression,
00:15:50
Speaker
and i work in this particular field, this particular discipline, how does that manifest? And so when I think about ambition, I start to think about certain games that I think have displayed that concept of, well, we made something.
00:16:04
Speaker
How do I make it better? How do I make it greater? How do we spin this on its head? Because that's what gets a gamers' attention a lot of the time is you made something awesome. How do we double it? How do we triple it? So a good example that I thought about was ah in Metroid Prime 1. They took a classic Metroid formula. They put it in 3D.
00:16:20
Speaker
and put it in first person. Brilliant, genius, made an incredible world, right? That remaster is like one of the highest rated games ever on Metacritic now. And so you take something like that, what an achievement, where do you go from there?
00:16:32
Speaker
And I really admire what they did with the second game, Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, where they designed this whole planet, Planet Ether, and it's this kind of crazy dust ball thing that's got you know high sci-fi and and crazy Torvus bog, all these neat little areas. And then they added this dark dimension on top of it. They said, well, what if we take the same world and duplicate it and put it on top of it through these weird little portals you have to go through from time to time? And then think, well, okay, well, how do we make it different, right? If we can't just slap the same level design, how do we make it feel like a different dimension? And they made it so that the atmosphere is poisonous. And it's like, well, okay, that's interesting. Well, now there's these little sanctuaries, these little bubbles where Samus has to get between to explore this world. So they made it dangerous.
00:17:15
Speaker
And so the level design is imitating the level design in the light ether. And then you go through these portals and it changes, right? So it's like they took the Metroid formula, that Metroidvania classic style of level design, and then they're building on top of it with really just a layer of ingenuity that's refreshing, that's compelling, it's interesting. So you come off beat in the first game and you feel like you've got a good sense of what that world is like, how to explore a world like that.
00:17:40
Speaker
Same game mechanics, right? The same first person shooter, scanning tool, all that kind of jazz. And then they add this whole other shadow world to it and it's like, wow, you know, the player's mind just expands and expands. So I think having a sense of ambition in level design comes from recognizing things that are are really well done, really great.
00:18:00
Speaker
and And especially if you've participated in that, you've built that and then thinking, how do I spin this on its head? How do I flip this over? Right? How can I add to this? And are there examples elsewhere in the industry where they've done that? And obviously there are, and they know left, right, and center. So I think that's one of the ways that I've thought about it, that I've you know dreamt about it and thinking, can I take something known and make it refreshing? Can I make it you know a sense of awe, a sense of wonder? Can I capture that again?
00:18:26
Speaker
When you're in a a larger studio, right, you have to get these okays, approvals, right? Who's the one that's coming up with concepts like this? Is it the level designer? Is it a different person? like where Where does this stem from?
00:18:39
Speaker
So when I was working at Treyarch, which is a very well-oiled machine, as people know, and you know making Call of Duty, I was working on Black Ops 6, and I worked on Cold War. And when I worked on Warzone, a lot of the big creative ideas come down from production leadership and which is, you know, dancing with marketing at the same time. So they're always daydreaming what's going to hit, what's got good flash, what's going to pop.
00:19:05
Speaker
And then they go through probably narrative, you know, leadership as well as the concept art leadership. And then it gets to design and design. I mean, design is probably, you know, dancing up in all those upper levels, like a party you hear upstairs. And then people come down and they're like, all right, we know what we want. We know the vibe, the theme, the setting. And so I'll get a little bullet point list of a few objectives that I have to hit. It's this part of the world at this time in history.
00:19:32
Speaker
And this is what has to happen there. Go. Right. So that I'll get handed things like that. And now I get to daydream. Well, how am I going to achieve that experience through my own expression? How do I interpret that experience?
00:19:46
Speaker
One, through the lens of Call of Duty, right? Similar to the Metroid example. It's it's a first-person shooter. It's you know concentrated combat action. It's military sim a little bit. And then I have to apply that, slap that on top of those bullet point settings.
00:20:03
Speaker
And now I start to design. Well, what would Call Duty feel like in those places? And so the more intimately I know what Call Duty feels like most of the time, you can extrapolate as a designer, well, how would it feel in this setting?
00:20:16
Speaker
And so an example that I was thinking about was like um if I wanted to design like a fancy bank, you know, how would i put a creative Call of Duty lens on that? Well, you know, maybe you you enter in through the front door and it's this big grandiose looking thing and there's, you know, counter-terrorist units or terrorist units or whatever all over the place. And so you'd have a big shootout between the pillars and the little teller offices and things. And then maybe you'd have to go into the back offices because the bad big bad guys upstairs with a hostage and then maybe the floor gets blown out. And now you're okay. Now you're in the underground and there's
00:20:48
Speaker
you know, a warehouse of all this gold and crazy stuff that a bank's dealing with. Finally, you find the C4 charges that they use to break in. You blow the ceiling, it collapses down. Now you're back in the main room and you're facing this giant staircase going up. Now you're up where all the big high roller offices are, the executive offices and things like that.
00:21:06
Speaker
And you find that the guys, you know, climbed up through escape hatch with some damsel over his shoulder I'm just painting a picture in a few seconds. And this could happen in the it could happen in the it could happen in the 90s.
00:21:16
Speaker
And all of that would color the experience in different ways. What kind of guns am I using? What's the architecture look like? and Stuff like that. um But anyway, it comes from those guys. It comes down to me. And that's literally how I would think through how would I start something like that. And then the level design just comes throughout. it Now you just color the environment as that little set piece, that little action moment to moment thing is happening.
00:21:39
Speaker
So i I love this, right? Like ideas are being generated, big ideas from people high up top, right? And as they work its way down, right? Things are getting more a little more refined and all of a sudden you have on your desk, A to Z has to happen. We have to hit X or LMNOP. The rest...
00:21:56
Speaker
Maybe you take a look at the pillars of your game. What are the pillars of a Call of Duty game versus a Marvel game versus and another type of game, right? Like what are those? And then you get to use your own imagination say, all right, I can do whatever I want as long as I do a to Z and hit whatever letters I said in the middle. i yeah That's awesome. that's like First of all, I'm not creative in the mindset world, but like I just imagine like you get to look at this and think, all right, I get to build my own story here. i get to tell my own little piece of the pie here.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, one of the best parts of that is that, and I've heard it described this way, great leadership hands their designers, their creatives, a box, a frame. Here's the box. You fill it, right? I know the boundaries. I know the edges. I know the corners. I know the heights and depths.
00:22:39
Speaker
Go. The bad leadership will say, here's the box. I filled half of it. Maybe you get to fill up this little bit, but make sure it tastes like the rest of it, you know?
00:22:49
Speaker
Not that it's bad leadership. That's a little strong. But at least the example makes makes sense when it's like I get to thrive the most when I'm handed a frame with which to operate within. You know, constraints. Constraints often produce creativity. So that's that's a nice little button on top. Cherry on top there. What's the ah realistic goals that you set for yourself without losing sight of kind of your creative vision?
00:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking about that. I think realistic goals can be set when a creator knows their toolbox. So I have to understand what I'm capable of, right?
00:23:26
Speaker
What is my, I have to know my limits. I have to know my capacities, my design drafting, creative capacity, my timeframe to iterate and deliver my technical ability to execute. These are the means through which my work is created.
00:23:41
Speaker
Knowing my tool belt, my process intimately, just knowing myself, allows me to properly professionally gauge how to set goals that become tangible results.
00:23:53
Speaker
you know mean? like I can set big vision and things like that, but unless I know how I operate, I have to have a process to be able to set those goals so that I can measure it. And that's part of the gig, right? Is i so i why i come into the office to do a creative job.
00:24:09
Speaker
I have to know how much I can or can't deliver on that job. So when they hand me that bullet point list, and they give me a deadline, a timeframe, I have to now fill that box, right? With my ability to draft and iterate my ability to daydream.
00:24:23
Speaker
And so once you know what you're working with, setting the goals becomes easy, I think, right? So because it's you don't get panicked over what can or can't I do, you know exactly what you can or can't do. And you have the guidance for what you're expected to do.
00:24:38
Speaker
That's ah it's just another little framing of the box, right? Like the frame gets smaller, not in a constraining way, But in a practical way, right? You know that much more what is expected of you and and where you can fill it and how you can fill it.
00:24:50
Speaker
And maybe like we said earlier, right? Like I made a win in this portion of the box. I filled out this shape of the box. I filled out 25%, 36%. Today I got 4%. Tomorrow I did 15%.
00:25:03
Speaker
So it's not like you have to you know spit out the entire completed design in one shot. it's It's incremental. It's iterative in an ideal development process, I think.
00:25:14
Speaker
I'm very curious. You said toolbox quite a few times. What is in your toolbox? ah Well, it's knowing what you can do in the editor.
00:25:25
Speaker
So like when I was learning how to make Call Duty, they taught us, i mean, you have to know how to use the engine, the Radiant engine. and And you would click and drag on a little 2D grid and you could switch the view of the 2D grid. And then there'd be a perspective view that shows you what what you just created looks like in 3D, right? Which is where you'll actually run around and test it and everything.
00:25:44
Speaker
And so I have to learn how to make walls, how to make shapes, how to make geometry. Once I know how to make something, I can learn how to make anything. So the i distinctly remember as I was learning it as an intern back in 2019, I would go to a gas station.
00:25:59
Speaker
And I would just i'd go anywhere, anywhere. I'd start looking at the architecture and be like, I'm in my mind thinking I know exactly how to make that shape in the editor. I could make that building in two seconds to the metrics that Call of Duty is expected to be within every doors, 52 or maybe 58 units wide, 96 units tall might be 92. I'm getting a little rusty. It's been a few years, but I remember those metrics, right? Like there were certain heights that things had to be.
00:26:24
Speaker
And so. Some of the tools become your technical execution. I know how to make those shapes, right? But that building looks crazy as hell. I don't have a clue how it would start to make that.
00:26:35
Speaker
I might need a new tool, right? I'm missing that that element. So I'd have to go grab someone else who's better with those tools and say, hey, how would you approach making this thing? Because the geometry is blowing my mind. I don't know how I'd approach that.
00:26:45
Speaker
um That's one example of a tool. Another one is you know how do I get inspiration? what What kind of flow state can I put myself in? Is it playing certain games? Is it going for a walk? Is it you know going out to eat? Is it listening to certain music? Whatever. Where where do I draw the inspiration from in the first place?
00:27:02
Speaker
Is it just flicking through Pinterest for an hour? All kinds of different stuff like that. There's there's tools for every step of the process.
Player Experience and Game Design Impact
00:27:09
Speaker
What was the last song you listened to? ah I listened to this morning. I just had some random synthwave stuff on this morning. you know I'm ashamed to say it. When I was younger, i used to really, really write almost for hours in a journal just doodling when I'd listen to music.
00:27:27
Speaker
My favorite, I think, most epic thing I've ever written for a game idea, i was listening to Take a Bow by Muse. And I wrote the end of a game trilogy that I dream of making.
00:27:39
Speaker
and it was And I wrote the end. well before I had the beginning polished out, but I just, it would just come like a vision. I could taste it. I could feel it. I can hear it. I could touch the surfaces.
00:27:50
Speaker
It's amazing. So that one in particular always gets me really good. And when I finally wrote the beginning of a dream game that I've, I've made up in my mind, it was shine on you crazy diamond by pink Floyd. All right. Like that long version in the beginning where there's just the sound of like twinkling stars and like a really low hum that, I mean, it's just, a it just, it puts you somewhere else.
00:28:11
Speaker
All right. Rock guy. We got news. We got Pink Floyd. There we go. All right. Let's talk a little more about level design. Yeah. You know, you said something really interesting in our last podcast where is, you know, when you play a game like The Witcher 3, right? It's a big open world. You might go to a place once and I'll never see this forest again and awesome. um But when you're playing a game like Rivals, you're running through the same areas over and over and over again. And you see this. So it's a little more important to be, maybe it's not the words not important, right? But people are going to see this. So what makes a level intuitive and rewarding for players?
00:28:48
Speaker
It's a really good question. um intuition is an interesting thing. And because over time, you see it everywhere. And there's memes about it. There's jokes about it, right? Like gamer brain. and I don't even know if it's ever been labeled that. But there's a way that people think, like you always check behind the waterfall, right? Or the game tells you, you run that way. The first thing you do is run in the opposite direction because there's probably a chest or some, you know, consumable, something you can pick up.
00:29:12
Speaker
You have to have a certain understanding of how all video games are made to start to question or start to like push against those boundaries, right? Like a QA tester would.
00:29:22
Speaker
They know the the expected experience and they can test that, but their job is to test what the players might do, right? What they could do in opposition to what the expectation is.
00:29:33
Speaker
And so to make a level intuitive to a player and rewarding, there's a lot of different elements to that. So it's like, how do I inspire, how do I encourage the player's mind to read the landscape that I've designed?
00:29:47
Speaker
So the games that came to mind when I thought about that question was like Deus Ex, Human Revolution, and like Cyberpunk 2077, which, you know, those kinds of games blare from the rooftops. Hey, we're built this way.
00:30:00
Speaker
Here's an office building you have to get into, right? And there's an objective somewhere deep within it You got to hack some computer and you got to get out. And so you have to think about the shape language.
00:30:11
Speaker
and the mechanics that become consistent to the player. There are doors that I can walk through. The front door is guarded by a bunch of cops. It would be a very loud, bloody, bombastic way to get in, but I know I can use that door to get in.
00:30:24
Speaker
Maybe there are side doors, but those doors are little, you know, blocked by obstacles of some kind or whatever. But there's also a vent. I recognize that vent because that vent was openable somewhere else, and I know that those vents are consistent.
00:30:36
Speaker
So there's a language, there's a vocabulary that begins to form in the player's mind because the level designers have built that vocabulary. And so it's less about the players having to use raw you know intuition to interpret. You want them to interpret very little of what they're looking at. You want them to know what they're looking at.
00:30:54
Speaker
right i I recognize this landscape. I see the main path. So like something in Cyberpunk, There was a recent giant warehouse I had to bust into, and there was obviously like a giant hangar door that had a mech patrolling it.
00:31:07
Speaker
The shape of that door is obviously a primary way into the building, but it's going to be a suicide mission if I go through that thing. So the way is obvious, though it might be riddled with danger, but there's also cameras I can hack to distract players, you know, those creatures with, and maybe I clear that path open. Or there'd be a pipe stretching from the wall where I'm standing on, you know just sort of looking out over where I have to get to. And these pipes stretch to the rooftop of the building where there's more of those vents that I'd recognize. So their language is is obvious, right? The pipes maybe are a little less so.
00:31:39
Speaker
It's just a straight path. That's shape language versus mechanic language. So the vocabulary becomes more diverse, right? It's like not only am I recognizing interactable objects, But I'm recognizing intended paths just in the hard geometry of the level.
00:31:53
Speaker
So it's really it can really be very diverse how you want to approach stuff like that. And in some games, it's more prevalent than others. Like something as linear as Gears War doesn't need that. you know Or Halo can be pretty convoluted. It can be easy to get lost in some of the old Halo campaigns because some of the levels are big. And you're like, where the hell do I go? you know And maybe they'll slap a little checkpoint or a little um you know quest marker for where you're supposed to go.
00:32:14
Speaker
But know it's it's a broad sense of expression how you get a player to feel like they they can grasp what you're cooking with. Do you, i mean, how does that sense come to you? Like the idea of recognizing vents, that's fine. I get that. But you're talking about walking on the vents or the pipes, right? you're like, oh, that's just straight line. Like this all sounds common sense when you're saying it, but like, that's not what I would look at and see when I see this. This is why it's interesting how you look at a game versus how I look at a game, right? Like you might look at that vent and say, hey i recognize that vent.
00:32:46
Speaker
Would i I? don't know. Maybe after enough times trying to do it, yeah, it would finally kick in, right? like Again, this is all going to how the sausage is made. like Is that a blessing or curse? Does it come naturally after time? I'm sure. i don't know that it comes naturally to a degree. I know maybe my brain is just wired that way to enjoy games because they feed the certain neuropath, right? like I love games because they're problem-solving.
00:33:10
Speaker
But i I don't usually like – I don't like math problems. I don't like long word problems and like – I don't like arbitrary problems. I like interesting world-themed problems.
00:33:22
Speaker
Like that's why when a game doesn't give me a sense of narrative purpose, like why am I here? Why am I fighting? So a point of critique I'll give.
00:33:33
Speaker
In World at War, Call of Duty, you are fighting as the Germans against the Russians or the Japanese against the Americans. The voice comms from all of those teams are themed historically.
00:33:45
Speaker
It sounds like I'm listening to a German officer. The music when we win or when we lose sounds themed to a German army. I get what I'm there for, right? Like the theme is strong.
00:33:56
Speaker
We don't have that anymore in modern CODs, in almost any of them. It's certainly not as strong as it was, even if it's there at a surface level dressing. That makes it harder to connect about why my character is there. And I'm a thematic player. This doesn't matter to a lot of players, but it matters to me.
00:34:11
Speaker
um I think when I look at the games that start to build shape language and mechanic language and stuff like that, it's entertaining because it's reinforcing the fantasy.
00:34:22
Speaker
So in Deus Ex, right? Like I'm a, I'm an ex-corporate security officer turned into a cybernetic mercenary. That's badass. How does my character navigate this world?
00:34:33
Speaker
He goes wherever the hell he wants, right? i'm going to use my tech to crack open this safe, to open that vent. I'm going to go through everywhere else but the front door. Or I can build my character to be brute-forced, armed to the teeth, and I'm going to kick the door in wherever I want. I'm going to walk right in through the front door. That's how I play cyberpunk at least. i got I've spent all this time building up my guns and my stats. I'm going to kick ass, baby. a love it, man. Balls to the wall. That's right. There's all these different ways that games can sell the player into those worlds. So it's it's less like an abstract, this is the puzzle puzzle formula to teach players how to do XYZ. I think a game can...
00:35:10
Speaker
can convince the player that the setting and the fantasy is interesting, that it's compelling, and theyll they will want to act out that fantasy. And in wanting to act that out, then they engage with the mechanics more richly, more deeply, right? Like, I'm the master chief. Hell yeah, I want to pick up two SMGs and run around with bullet hoses, right? Like, I want to interface with the mechanic because the theme is strong, not just because the mechanic itself is fun.
00:35:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's the same way with getting players to navigate levels of varying complexities. Is there a balance that you have to take as a designer between kind of the freedom of running around doing what you want as well as a guided experience?
00:35:49
Speaker
It definitely matters what the game's objectives are. So famously, right, when Todd Howard's talking about Skyrim, be who you want, go where you want, do what you want. That's the goal. That's the objective for what the game needs to be achieving as an experience. And the level design reflects that.
00:36:04
Speaker
You leave the dungeons of Helgen finally, and you see the dragon fly over, and you can choose to follow you know one of your two guides back to Riverwood, or you can literally just go down to Falkreath, wander off to Markarth, and get destroyed by the Forsworn. You can go anywhere you want.
00:36:20
Speaker
So the freedom is the primary goal. It's less about guiding the player, because the player isn't even expecting to be guided, right? Hopefully, at least by that point. And some players hate the tutorial missions because they're like, I know how to play these mechanics. I know how to, I'd rather just figure it out out there. I don't even want this tutorial. Let me skip this, right? A lot of players are like that.
00:36:40
Speaker
um Versus something like Gears of War. The original trilogy are very guided experiences. And so the player the player freedom of expression isn't in the level design. Where is it?
00:36:51
Speaker
Well, it's in the arsenals that are available to the player. It's in all these cool tools and weapons that the the designers will hand place for the players at key moments. Here's a mortar launcher. Here's a sniper rifle. Here's the torque bow.
00:37:02
Speaker
All these cool stuff, that's where they get to express themselves. Not on the level design. The level design is intended to be a nearly on-rails linear experience. Hell, they've got a button to hold down just so you make sure that you're seeing where the set piece is, right? So that's not – the focus is an expression and freedom for that level design. it It is to guide the experience, but it depends on the game. depends on the objectives of the game.
00:37:23
Speaker
It's so weird to hear you say that. First of all, I love that button in Gears of War because I often get lost and I hold wide. It's like, you there we are. That's where I'm going. But like the level, I mean, again, we talk about level design and and part of me thinks about the visuals. The visuals in in Gears of War are top notch, right? I mean, it's they're unreal monsters there. they They crush the engine. It looks great. But I get what you're saying. Like the design is designed. you're This is the path. Like you can't.
00:37:49
Speaker
You can't leave the path there, right? So like level design isn't just look and feel, it's the flow. So the flow is not existing in... Not not existing, right? the The flow in Gears is a little more constraint compared to other games. Yes. Well, it's a different objective, right? It's trying to do something different. Whereas flow through a dungeon in Skyrim can also be linear. But the second you step outside, the world's wide open.
00:38:11
Speaker
So yeah it really matters what the game wants the player to go through. So let's move over to, and we'll briefly touch this because we talked about it before the podcast started, but on the podcast, right? This is a small win. Small as wins, I think, when you don't have a job that you you count specific things, right? Like small wins are important because you need to be able to document progress and progression and and moving forward, right? How do you yourself, Jack, how do you celebrate these? Or how do you understand what these small victories are and how do you celebrate them?
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely... It can be a lot less just like an industry related thing and and a personal thing, right? Because people can have these sort of goals in all all manner of hobbies and things. And as long as you don't have like a crushing deadline for something, then you become your your own boss, right? Like I have an art piece in the other room I'm doing. I do pointism work and it's tedious and it's slow and it's very, you know, patience demanding. And one of them I did in two and a half weeks when I was in college. Another one I did over a summer. Another one took five years.
00:39:11
Speaker
And they get more detailed as I go because I get my experience grows. So I know how to do it properly and I get frustrated if I go too quickly. So I want to take my time. And it's very satisfying when I make progress on it or not.
00:39:23
Speaker
And so, you know, just even unrelated to games, it's it's the same kind of thing. Like psychologically, i I know I want to make progress. I hate seeing the things sitting there, right? Because you want to do something. I want to achieve XYZ.
00:39:34
Speaker
Well, it's not going to go anywhere if I don't ever touch it. So even if I sit down for five minutes, if I do one square out of like the 248 that I have to do, if I do half a square, it's better than not ever touching it, you know?
00:39:46
Speaker
And I have friends that will get frustrated with me because I i daydream up – I can make a game concept in five seconds. Like I have so many concepts and ideas of games that I'd love to work on, but I'm not ah i'm not a good indie developer. I'm not good on my own. I don't know how to script in C Sharp. I don't know how to set up sprite – you know, brackets, whatever. I don't know how to set up animations for a third person shooter. I'm slow. The ideas flow like no problem, but I'm a lazy executor. I suck. And my friends get mad because they're like, i like your idea. Now go do because I'm not going to do it for you. And I'm like, I know, I know, I know. So if I just sat down for five minutes and did a tutorial, you know even the same tutorial or just followed along to one, I would start to learn the things that I would need that I could later extrapolate onto the new projects I want to do.
00:40:29
Speaker
And there's joy in that. I think it's really – it's an emotional, psychological thing. It's it's not about – you know It's less so about planning and formulas. It's more about how do I mentally, emotionally, internally find satisfaction in the fact that I have engaged with my passions even a little bit.
00:40:49
Speaker
I'm doing this because it brings me joy. I'm doing this because I'm interested in it. Can I allow myself the discipline to just sit down, just start? and Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that the
Emotional Power and Lasting Memories in Games
00:41:01
Speaker
hardest part is starting. The second you sit down and start, then you get into it.
00:41:04
Speaker
I set a timer for 30 minutes and an hour goes by. That's the magic of it. Set a timer for five minutes and 10 minutes will go by. That's better than zero minutes, right? And there's joy in that because you'll be doing the thing, oh and it'll be so good. And then you'll step away and be like, that was good. That was great. The hardest part is to go back again, right? Is to go back a second time to get yourself to sit down again.
00:41:23
Speaker
But it's a complicated thing, man. It's it's it's a social thing. I'm weak. that's That's a big weakness for me is discipline. I am really terrible at at getting my ass to sit down, focus, concentrate, dial up because I'm a dreamer, right? Oh, I love walking in the clouds. Oh, I love it. I could daydream all day long and because I'm there, but I want other people to be there, right? I want someone else to share in the joy of the vision that I see, the world that I can paint in two seconds. Right.
00:41:47
Speaker
but I got to get myself, I get, that's why I'm a good salesman. You know, really I'm a personality hire. I don't know if i'm that good of a level designer, but I'm a good salesman. So and that's why Jack's actually doing this podcast. He should be working right now. but he's like Yeah. I'm here. I'm here to flapping my gums while my best friend level designers are all in the engine, actually making progress, learning how to, you know, make textures and stuff. I'm talking on their behalf. Really. What I like that you said though, is I always heard about it when you, about cleaning, like cleaning the kitchen. Like,
00:42:16
Speaker
Set a timer for 15 minutes. Once you start it, you're going to finish it. Like you're just going to be in the zone. and That's all it really takes is set a timer, start the motions, and you get and it just a groove. You get into this groove. but But how do you get motivated, Jack? What do you do to to to force yourself? And this forcing isn't the best word to use, but like how do you stay motivated? Yeah.
00:42:37
Speaker
I think you got to keep your eye on the prize to a great degree. And it can be easy in the minutia and the ebb and flow of life to lose sight of those things. Like, i mean, it's depressing when a game developer loses sight of why he's even there, right? Like, why do even want to be here?
00:42:54
Speaker
Well, when's the last time you played a game that, you know, swelled your swelled your eyes with with tears of joy or because the characters were so compelling or you saw an environment that took your breath away or mechanics and systems that you wanted to sink your teeth into like a BLT, baby, right? Like, Where do you – you got to remember why you're even showing up in the morning.
00:43:14
Speaker
Like I hang shit all over the walls. Literally in this camera view, you can't see anything, but I promise my house is decorated with game stuff everywhere. And I love it because I look at it and it inspires me. I'm like I remember what it was like when I played that moment or what it felt like to step in the shoes of that character.
00:43:30
Speaker
How can I do something? Can I make something in this world that another person can feel that joy because of something I dreamed up, right? Like I want to sit down. and work on this crazy backstory that I'm i'm editing with with a friend. Or I want to sit down and try and make a first-person shooter because I know what I love about shooting guns in a game. Can I make something that will do the same for somebody else? It's joy. We are engineers of joy. That's what we do.
00:43:56
Speaker
That's the name of the game. You're not just an artist to create for the sake of creating. It's a glorifying. It's a worship thing. it's It's an expression of what we're made to do. It's a part of who we are. And I think I need to be surrounded by it. I like to see it. I like to talk about it. right yeah yeah This is part of the reason. This is part of the motivation because you're into it and I'm into it and we can talk it. There's camaraderie. There's friendship.
00:44:18
Speaker
People bond over it. I'll tell you story. I dressed up for Halloween. i was the only person because I'm in an office full of losers. For Halloween, I dressed up in my Fallout 3 – my Fallout 4 jumpsuit for Halloween day. I went to the market after work because I had to buy some flowers for a pretty lady. And all these guys start coming out of the word work and you know sometimes they're the usual suspects. They're these shyer guys and gals that are quieter, maybe a little more socially awkward, but they light up.
00:44:43
Speaker
they can't I can't shut them up. right there's there's ah The butcher is coming out from behind the stand. A cashier is coming over. The flower girl is coming over. like People are hyped because they recognize something they love and I love.
00:44:54
Speaker
Now there's a bond to sharing that. I get up so and I stay motivated because I want to make things that do that for people. You know, people are so worried about their image and being embarrassed. Like, it's slightly different, but my six-year-old son loves the new Linkin Park songs. And, like, he screams singing. um ah He knows all the words. It's mind-blowing. And, like, they have a talent show going on at school at the end of the month. I'm like, dude, you should sign up. Like...
00:45:17
Speaker
He's like, but everyone's to laugh at me. i'm like, no, man, what you do is awesome. like Even if you don't have the best voice, it doesn't matter. like You have the courage to go up there. like if no one does If you don't have the courage to go up there, you can't be making fun of the people that go up there because yes because you're not up there. and I love that. right like Yes. Get in the arena. Absolutely.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yes. You also mentioned, I call them like those game wow moments, right? Like there's two gaming moments in my life that truly stand out to me. It's me like, my God, like the first one, Super Mario 64, when you kind of, I think we may have talked about this when you first start the game and you zoom in. Like yeah yeah I was always a 2D gamer, right? Everyone was. Yeah. N64 came out with that. It's just like, ah oh my God moment. Right. And the same was with a GTA three, right? I was always, always played the GTA one, two London or whatever it was. Right. And like all a sudden you start up GTA three and you're in the city and you're just like, wow. And I love that. That's the goal, right? Like, Yes, there are newer games, I'm sure like I haven't played the new Zelda and that's bad on me. Right. But I heard that's another one of those games. I was just like, like, it feels next to Jen, like this is something new that is out there. And like, it's hard to find those moments. But if you can be the one that sticks a moment like that, you're going to be in someone's mind for the rest of their life. Yes, dude, literally.
00:46:32
Speaker
I literally was, I mean, i felt hell, I'm wearing my Balochow t-shirt, dog. I'm a huge fan. Like sitting on the plane one the first times I got the game, i was like, I've heard so much about this damn thing. And just sitting there in awe of the genius of that game, I'm like, this is just pure, brilliant, homebrewed game design executed so finely. I mean, it's that is what it's all about.
00:46:53
Speaker
Like Balochow captures so much of what it means to make games and make a great game. Like to take a universal human experience, like not universal, but most people know the basic five-card poker rules, right? Like it's over a centuries-old experience that people have playing cards. And he took something so ingrained culturally in people's minds and just spun it on a dime.
00:47:14
Speaker
He gave it so much flair, and I couldn't help but, like, the music is cool. The little CRV, like, TV effect that he did, like, there's so much flair to it. And it's so interesting.
00:47:25
Speaker
Or even just playing Marvel Rivals, one of those maps, I hadn't seen the final art for it yet. I think it's one of the Hydra maps. And literally I was playing like a – it's a control match where you're just fighting over a certain objective.
00:47:37
Speaker
And my team kept kept pinging like way off to the side. i'm like, what the fuck are they pinging? I look over there and oh my god. Like it's got all these crazy giant ethereal eldritch tentacles coming out of this great enormous door. And I just sit there like, wow. was like, you know I'm getting headshot to the other side. I don't care. Because just drinking it in. it's like It's amazing. like like So you take something like Balochow, which is in a wow moment of game design, and then the art achieved in Marvel Rivals is is top shelf. It's above the top shelf. It's something that's the floor upstairs. It's so good.
00:48:08
Speaker
So yeah, those moments are just But Bellacro took so many hours of my life this year. was so bummed it didn't win. I knew had a very big... Astro Bot is a masterpiece. That's probably going to be one of those wow moment games. But Bellacro, one dude... And even last night... What was the name the soccer game that came out? Yeah, that looked really neat. It did. I was telling my friends we were playing games last night. I was like, yeah, they're releasing a soccer game that's Rocket League. They're like, is it Rocket League already soccer? Like...
00:48:35
Speaker
yeah, but this looks awesome. Like, this is such common sense. Like, how is this now here? I thought the same exact thing. Yeah, truly. It's the same. It's just a very similar thing. Great comparison.
00:48:46
Speaker
So going, moving forward, right? We're going to talk about what makes levels stick out in people's minds. And not just that. Something I loved about Rivals is I was playing yesterday, I i don't i think it was on one of the... the Tokyo maps, I don't know where I was. I walked into a room in the ellve and all of sudden was in someone's office, right? And like, it was a very detailed office. I was like, whoa, like I'm clearly not supposed to be in here right now, but like, there's a lot of detail going on this office. So like, how can a design tell a story without words?
00:49:17
Speaker
Oh man. I think Bioshock is probably one of the best examples that would come off the top of my head immediately. um And even though that game has, um the,
00:49:30
Speaker
Top five like best written games ever, like some of the most wordy, lengthy speeches and things, and God, is it not perfect. And even in that first level, if you removed the writing from you know that sign that says, no gods or kings, only man, like you could take away all the written language in bio in Bioshock in the first level.
00:49:50
Speaker
Take it off all the so the picket signs and things. Just seeing picket signs on the floor, you would wonder what the hell happened here, right? Like mute the characters. There's these creepy stalking figures. But you'd see these advertisements of beautiful, prim, polished people, happy, slinging crazy abilities and things. And then you'd start to see the needles strewn out all over the floors and the walls chipped away. singed carpets, water leaking in. right It's it just amazing.
00:50:19
Speaker
The world is telling a story of what was once glorious and posh and clean is now desolate and decaying. that And it's just purely it through the emotion, through the lighting, through the tone.
00:50:30
Speaker
We have all kinds of... I mean, how many horror games take place in some abandoned building in the middle of nowhere, right? it's like it's it tells a story itself. We have innate human reactions to certain things.
00:50:42
Speaker
And especially when you're drawing from inspiration from different places, right? Like that old Art Deco 50s style. People know what they – they that and they think like, old black and white films and movies and certain accents and things and smoking lounges. And then you see it. You see the polished red polyester. You see the little ashtrays and things like that. And it's like, OK, I know this. There's enough of this world that I know that makes it human, and there's enough of it that's mind-blowing. I know what the ocean is like. I know what water does in certain light. I know what the glow of the sun might look like 20 feet underwater.
00:51:14
Speaker
Now you're putting all these worlds clashing together, and there's just nothing but the sense of wonder. So I think if I had to try and concentrate it into something, it's it's bringing the human and the understood and blending it with the unbelievable.
00:51:28
Speaker
Because something like Halo is is a little more difficult when it's in a sci-fi setting like that, right? Or even like Mass Effect. like Those worlds are doing that effect I just described less so. Except maybe in Halo, like the first one, where you crash land on the because you see it from space and you're like, what the hell is that?
00:51:44
Speaker
And then when you crash land and you turn around and you see the ring up in the distance, it's just a skybox. But immediately the sense of like physics and gravity and wonder is ah invoked instantly.
00:51:55
Speaker
That's it. You're just looking at a 2D like backdrop and the sense of like I'm on this giant ass ring in space, right? Like there's no words. But the the sense of emotion and scale and drama is swelling.
00:52:11
Speaker
That's what matters. that's That's how you do it. you know And it's hard to it's hard to say you do this, but that's what i'd I guess I'd have to try and say is a human emotion mixed with the fantastic and then just slamming those together.
00:52:23
Speaker
With the emotions, are there, I mean, Halo 1's a great example, right? I mean, it's it's classic. Like, are there tips or tricks to evoke emotions in people, right? Like, obviously, someone dies, it's going to be upsetting, right? that it's But like how does a level design evoke emotion outside of, is it planned or is it just happen? No, it's always planned. It's always planned.
00:52:48
Speaker
um When you walk out from Helgen in the tutorial after Skyrim, And you step out and you look at, you can see that mountain range with Bleak Falls Barrow and the in the, you know, the old runic ruins and things there and a dragon flying in the distance. You can see Winter, winter not Winterfell. Oh, Lord, help me.
00:53:08
Speaker
What is it? whatever the one that's out in the plains. Anyway, like there's a vista. Every vista is intended in a game. Oh, Elden Ring's an even better example, right? You you've come up the stairs and you open up that first door, you step out and you're in Lindell, right? The land's between and you can see Stormvale Castle on the hillside.
00:53:26
Speaker
Like, Someone took a screenshot of that and analyzed all the level design they're doing. right There's composition in that first step. And even if the player like just keeps walking forward for a good 15 minutes, they're still going to see that layout.
00:53:37
Speaker
And all these things are drawing the player's eye. That's my immediate goal. This is an immediate obstacle. Here's a safe zone. Here's an information post. right Because the guy standing right there to talk to you. There's a spot that you've already learned is a save point.
00:53:50
Speaker
You can see a big scary golden knight walking down there. So you're like, that guy is probably going fuck me up. And then there's the big castle on the hillside and you know this sort of winding path that disappears into the mist.
00:54:00
Speaker
So I'm like, OK, well, I guess I got to go that way. All of that is intentional. All of it. That's why it's so good. That's why it's genius because there's an intelligent mind designing it with purpose. The purpose is to inspire, to direct, to communicate.
00:54:14
Speaker
It's all wordless, especially those kinds of games, right? Because whenever you do hear talking, you're like, what the hell are they talking about? And so it doesn't need the language. The language is is visual. It's in shapes and it's in vocabulary.
00:54:25
Speaker
what If you were going to college today, right, what what are the skills you think that kind of are going into game design? Like what you're talking about now, right? Just understanding human emotion and how that, like, what are the skills needed?
00:54:42
Speaker
a question. Do you mean to teach it or do you mean for them to come out of school equipped? To come out of school equipped. I mean,
00:54:53
Speaker
what I would expect from level designers coming out of college now is to have obviously the technical ability to make something in 3D in an editor, whether it's white box, doesn't even have to be textured.
00:55:07
Speaker
because you can tell plenty in a black and white environment. It doesn't have to be textured. It doesn't need fancy materials. Your design will sell itself if it's well thought out, if it's well executed, and if it's well presented. It still has to be well lit. you know It can't be pitch black. like I have to see the environment you've designed well.
00:55:22
Speaker
um you know I want to see top-down diagrams and things. So a basic, very technical, boring you know understanding of 3D execution and spaces and stuff like that. and But that, even in in of itself, has to be within a broader sphere, a broader shell of game sense, right? Video game sense. Why are you here?
00:55:44
Speaker
I want to be a level designer. For what? For video games, okay? What kind of video games? and I mean, they don't even have to answer that, right? It's just video games in general. and What is the purpose of a video game? It's entertainment.
00:55:55
Speaker
It's an art form, all right? What kind of entertainment? Well, it's interactive, okay? So then you have to have a grasp on inviting... human beings into a space that they may have never that they probably have never seen before, right?
00:56:07
Speaker
How does your environment help them to learn the tangible mechanics and controls of the world, right? Like think about all the platforming games. The first pitfall jump almost always is a safe one, right?
00:56:21
Speaker
You fall down because you missed the jump, but there's a there's no death pit. There's a few little jumps to get back up and you try it again. Almost universal because they're trying to teach you safely. That's a pitfall.
00:56:32
Speaker
There will be more like this, but we're just going to teach you how to get over the first hurdle anyway. So then when it's a real danger, it's the same execution. It's just the the stakes are different, right? And level design is behind that. So players that have an understanding on how to do the job, why you do the job,
00:56:51
Speaker
I think is extremely important, right? Like, what are you trying to do? You're trying to sell a world that they've never been to before. You want that to be fantastic. You want it to be breathtaking. You want it to be compelling, interesting.
00:57:04
Speaker
Why should I take another why should i so take another step into the world you've made? what have you What are you showing me that's making that interesting? That's some of the strength of that Borderlands 4 trailer. Boy, if I've ever seen it, those worlds are beautiful, right? Some of those environments are eye-popping. It's whoa, I want to go there.
00:57:20
Speaker
i want to run around that. Look at the guy that made that game of the take two or it it just takes two new one. Yeah, that you out of it call I forget what it's called, but like those and he knew what they knew what they were doing.
00:57:31
Speaker
Right. Big, big, flashy, bombastic environments where it's like, hell, I want to go run around that. That looks amazing. They're selling the world. They're selling the visuals, right? Like. It has to be inspiring. It has to stir the emotions in a player.
00:57:45
Speaker
And I think I would want students to have ah just a basic understanding of that, just grasp that because that's not that's not high philosophy. That's just enjoying video games and being able to talk about it. That's it. And then just make something that does that, right? And you can fail at that a thousand times, but you have enough examples to learn from that to say you have you have no understanding of that or you don't think in those terms I think is unacceptable.
00:58:07
Speaker
So that's for that's for level designers that are coming out of school or people that are interested in something like that. For people like yourself, right? How do you continue to grow? And you can say play games, and that is an obvious answer, but are there other ways you can do so?
00:58:22
Speaker
Well, it goes back to the ambition question from earlier, right? It's like... Once you learn what it takes to make something. So like when I was working on Warzone, I knew what it took to make good. I had a grasp. i not I'm not going to say like I had it all figured out. I had an understanding of what it took to make ah an interesting POI, a point of interest in a very large map.
00:58:40
Speaker
I knew how to make a smaller tiered POI, right? Something you unique could spend a little time on and something really small, like a tier three, like a gas station or something like an outhouse little patch, right? Like I knew how to make those levels of experiences.
00:58:53
Speaker
How do I flip that on on its head? How do I take that and make it stupid, make it crazy? So one of the examples I would give is when I got assigned to make the season six destruction of Verdansk, like I was the designer assigned to make the downtown destruction and the stadium destruction.
00:59:12
Speaker
And those were very well designed, very well established, very well understood POIs, points of interest. How do I take that and spin it on its head while still executing Call of Duty level design.
00:59:24
Speaker
right So that it was a sense of grasping the player experience while being forced thrust into a crazy assignment. right like I had to tear up all kinds of very professionally polished final art assets, which is not easy. easy That's tedious. right Because the way that the artist might have executed it means like you can't just tilt the building and have you know dirt under there. like There's probably a void under there that now we have to fill with something. right the The architecture has to shatter in a certain way. how does What windows are going to be broken? Do we have to redo all those windows? right like A thousand different questions have to be asked.
00:59:59
Speaker
And i think to keep growing, it's to ask those kinds of questions. Well, I know how to make a Counter-Strike map. How would I make it new? How do I make it fresh? How can you make something where it's like people will never forget that map because of XYZ? Think about shipment from COD 4.
01:00:15
Speaker
It's stupidly small. It was probably somebody's little test map. And then they thought, how What kind of chaos would this evoke if we just made this an actual ship level?
01:00:26
Speaker
Brilliant. right And the stats have shown players obsess over small maps, over the big ones. We don't get maps like Wasteland or Overgrown anymore. Some of my all-time favorites. And it's a tragedy because then they just follow the numbers. right The numbers say they like these kinds of maps. Well, that's where they go. That's why we get maps that are like that 24-7 Shoothouse, 24-7 Newtown. They love it.
01:00:49
Speaker
That's all they want. right It's rapid. It's crazy. But that's ambition, right? Somebody had to have a crazy ass idea and the guts to see it through. So now we get the joy that that chaos can reap.
01:01:00
Speaker
And I think trying to spin yourself on a dime, right? Like I'm good at this. I think I understand this well. I want to do something different. What do I want to say? It's ah it's a lot about being an artist, right? it's like, what am I going to say about this medium? Look at Jackson Pollock. Look at you know ah Picasso, you even Van Gogh. right like they They said something different with the same art form. They took paint and they did something different with it and they they had a statement. Even without words, they just spoke as a creative. How do we do that with level design?
01:01:31
Speaker
I think it's asking yourself that question. I think it's expecting that of yourself is really important. right it's not I don't expect myself to wake up every day, go get a paycheck. I expect myself to keep dreaming of something crazy, of something different, of something new because I don't want to just live on a shelf.
01:01:47
Speaker
right I want to live in someone's memories. I want to live in someone's nostalgia. I want so i want something I create to be something somebody tells a story about. I can tell you hours of stories of me and my friends playing Halo 2 split screen. Of the first time I played Dead Space, the first time I saw Oblivion at a friend's house, first time I played Smash Brothers, right? Like I could go on and on and on.
01:02:05
Speaker
These games tell stories, and they they get people to tell stories within them. That's the kind of shit I want to make. Not just wake up every day, understand the formula, grab a paycheck. That's nonsense. It will kill you.
01:02:17
Speaker
It will erode you. but That's what the lack of ambition will do. It will rot you in a different way. Too much ambition will crush you. It will poison you because you'll be endlessly frustrated with yourself. You won't have joy. The lack of it will deflate you until you're just a soggy balloon.
01:02:31
Speaker
I think – That is a great way to wrap things up. I love how you said you want to create something that people tell stories about. It tells a story. i remember sitting playing Tony Hawk with my best friend at the time on his futon on a GameCube. I remember these things that are just so strange to remember, but they're stories. They were parts of my life that I will forever hold special to me. right and Maybe they won't ring up again until I'm talking with you or I'm talking with him. right It's just like...
Passion and Inspiration in the Gaming Industry
01:03:01
Speaker
That is an amazing goal of having to create something that will tell stories over time. a memory, one of those core memories that always kind of comes up when you need to have it. And I think that's a perfect way to put it.
01:03:13
Speaker
Before we do a wrap up today, Jack, is there anything you want to just talk about? Anything you want to throw out there? Oh, man. ah oh man What an interesting time to be alive, huh? Boy. Life is great, right? It's just there it's just the best, man. It's glorious. It's beautiful.
01:03:30
Speaker
There's so many cool things to do, so many cool things to play. I would really echo what, I kick myself for not knowing his name, I think it's Sven, the guy that led the Baldur's Gate 3 project.
01:03:43
Speaker
What he said at the end of the Game Awards, you gotta to go watch and listen to it man, because that's what it's all about. and He just nailed it. In terms of production and development and the business itself, like, I think he really got – he had the soul of what it takes to make a great game in his hands, and he vocalized it and articulated it beautifully.
01:03:58
Speaker
I would reiterate everything he said, absolutely. And I'm naive, right? I'm still naive young, and I just got a big mouth and a big heart. So it's easy for me to swing around and you know punch some fists and stuff. And I got a long way to go, baby, but I love this stuff. I love the game.
01:04:11
Speaker
And I hope that people that make games – We'll just hold on to the the job that we have because it's not just you know grabbing a paycheck, man. It's like accepting the life afforded to us by the passion that we have I think is a key to deep joy, a deep joy, a motivating joy.
01:04:31
Speaker
you know Like this might be rough. It might be rough and ragged. It might make me move a few times and stuff like that. The only other thing I'd want to do is be a minister, if you can believe that. But I love this stuff. and It's so cool. And i I embrace the chaos of it as best I can. And I'm stupidly grateful to still have a gig in the first place. And I love what we do. I love my team. i love the job. And I want other people to love that. I want students to feel excited about that. right don't Don't look at the numbers.
01:04:56
Speaker
right Look at what – Bellatro is exactly what should nuke any sense of depressive or sad attitude from orbit.
01:05:07
Speaker
That's a one-man job or like the guy that made Stardew Valley. right like You can do it. There are proven examples of people that do it. Is it gut-wrenching? Is it brutal? Is it difficult? Is it lucky? You better believe it, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. It doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.
01:05:22
Speaker
because the rewards are rich, right? That guy was making games just for his friends and family. he said maybe 12 or 10 people will play it. Now he's on the stage. He didn't even go up there because there's so much publicity, right? So it's crazy. we Anybody can do it.
01:05:33
Speaker
We can totally do it. I just hope people don't lose sight of that because it's the best industry in the world. As Todd Howard said, I love the man. I love quoting him too because, boy, does he come up with stuff. He says, it's the greatest combination of art and technology.
01:05:43
Speaker
It's the truest thing I've ever heard. It's the best combination of both. All this tech for what? All this art. Oh, boy, when you put them together, there's nothing like it, so. I just hope people keep the flame. Keep the flame alive, baby. Don't let the flame go out.
01:05:56
Speaker
No better way to put that than Jack, Minister Jack. just let Just provide Jack, this has been an amazing experience. I'm hoping we do it again, and eventually I'm going to get out of you pieces of what your dream game is. will work wellllll We'll help you get it all going in here. but off please We will have information about Jack on our player-driven podcast.
01:06:17
Speaker
blog, I guess. That's where we have a website. Jack, I really appreciate you coming out. is it Unless you have anything else, I'll bid you farewell. I washed my hands of it. That was great. Yeah, no, I appreciate this so much, dude. I really do. I hope you have a great weekend.
01:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Thanks, boss.