Game Design: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Wordware Game Developers Library)

As games have grown in complexity, the number of level designers required for a particular game has increased. Whereas one designer used to be able to truly control every last facet of a game s design, now a lead designer must find level designers she can trust to build levels that will make a significant contribution to the game s design. Though a lead designer may be able to look over the shoulder of these level designers and do her best to direct the efforts, in the end she has delegated a large part of the gameplay s creation to these invaluable members of her team. This can have both a good side, as more voices in the game s design may make the game a more robust experience, and a bad side, as the clarity of artistic vision becomes diluted by so many different people working on the project. Such are the perils of most all modern commercial game development.