"Level with Me", my level design interview series at RPS

[Campaignjunkie]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/level-with-me/

Hey, I have a series going at Rock Paper Shotgun now. Basically, I interviewed a bunch of FPS level designers across the entire scene, and we all collaborated on the same Portal 2 level. Roundtable panels are usually too messy, so I thought having this shared Portal 2 level would be its own roundtable of sorts, and we could all talk through level design instead of pesky words.

For part 1, I have Dan Pinchbeck (who name-checks Rob Briscoe a fair bit ) and, um, let's just say for part 3, you'll be seeing a very familiar Mapcorian...

[Mazy]

Aye I saw it earlier, ossim sauce~

[Mr. Happy]

very cool,

interesting stuff about narrative in there.

[Jetsetlemming]

Interesting stuff. I've never actually played Dear Esther the mod, because by the time I had heard of it, I had heard of Dear Esther the remake... should I play the mod? Or that Korskakova one? I've played your one about organizing memories (at least I think that was you).

I'm not very good at keeping up on source mods these days. Like Research and Development, that came out a million years ago, and I've had it installed in Steam the entire time, and I've gone through three windows installs, two video cards, and an entire computer rebuild since the last time I played it, and even then it was only like an hour and a half. I liked it, I did, just other stuff distracted me...

[Mr. Happy]

I haven't played Dear Esther either, I'm waiting for the remake. Is it best to wait?

[mjens]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11 ... k-monahan/

[-HP-]

What a good read man!

[Furyo]

It's a great concept, I'm very much enjoying reading these. Great interviews too, with lots of humor and insights.

[Jenn0_Bing]

Just read through the first two, very enjoyable, I look forward to the other parts now.

[FrieChamp]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/07/level-with-me-magnar-jenssen/

insta~~~

I highly enjoy reading those,too!

[Rick_D]

why does he sound like such a troll when inteviewing insta, it's like he's trying to trip him up all the time :S

[Tailgunner]

Having magnar on is great, I get a little tired of all the wierd story people that have all these fance ideas about physchology and sometimes forget that they talk about games, not to say that they are intresting to read, but I do enjoy some "regular" designers a bit more, liked instas the best

[Rick_D]

pompous "games is an art" designers are the worst.

[Mazy]

Aahh didn't know that you work at Avalanche insta, coolness~

Haven't read the article yet, will later~

[Campaignjunkie]

why does he sound like such a troll when inteviewing insta, it's like he's trying to trip him up all the time :S

I hope insta didn't think I was trolling him. I just wanted him to say interesting stuff and sound smart, so I came up with (what I thought) were interesting topics that he had some authority on. I was softballing compared to what hardball could've been -- like "People say GRAW2 sucks, why do you think that was?" or "Tell everyone at RPS why Square Enix killed GRIN."

Would you rather have had me ask him how many weapons are in GRAW2, or ask him what his favorite level in MW2 is? How many polygons are in Whoopservatory? Some dumb game journalism / press release stuff? "How great is it, to work at Avalanche? How awesome is E3?"

I actually thought I kept praising him too much.