Welcome to The Official SnarkPit Interview Series of 2011. Here we're looking to interview individuals who have at least two years experience designing levels for games. We accepted entries from amateurs and professionals alike in an effort to enlighten the masses, especially those who are aspiring level designers or hobbyists. From new to old, there is something to be learned by all. People from around the world talk about what got them into level design, and what they do to push the limits and explore the possibilities. Level design has always been a collaborative effort spent conversing with others for critiques and opinions, and it is in this spirit that these interviews are presented to you.

This is Interview #3 out of the series as given by Mr. Chris (2d-chris) Kay.

Chris Kay has been a long time enthusiast of level design, and currently works as a level designer for Crytek working on Crysis 2. He worked during most of the initial development of the Insurgency mod (HL2), and completed presentation levels showcasing EPICS Unreal Engine 3 for the PS3. He frequents the message boards of mapcore.net as the user: "2d-chris" and continues to support the mapping community with his feedback and side projects, as well as his active blog.


You can best reach him through this e-mail: chris_mapper@hotmail.com
-OR- see more of his works on his website: http://www.2d-chris.com


The Interview:
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1. SnarkPit: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with level design?

Chris: To people of this planet I’m known as Chris Kay, aka 2d-chris. I live and work in Frankfurt - Germany and was born in South England.

My journey started as a teen when I discovered RTS level editors and soon became really interested in making my own missions. After a few years of dabbling around with RTS editors I started making full 3d maps in Unreal and World Craft. These days I work as a professional level designer at Crytek.

2. SnarkPit: How long have you been mapping or doing level design work?

Chris: I started when I was about 13, and now I’m 26 so that must make it 13 years!

3. SnarkPit: What games and game types do you map for?

Chris: Just about anything I can get my hands on but I’m most experienced with FPS games, both single player and multiplayer.

4. SnarkPit: If level design is currently a hobby for you, What do you plan to do, or continue doing with your experience and skills in the near future?

Chris: Although level design is my profession it’s still my hobby, the next five years I’ll be branching out and take a shot at working on some RPG and MMO games as they are my favourite games to play.

5. SnarkPit: Where do you look for inspiration or whom do you look to for ideas and in what mediums?

Chris: I don’t think I spend as much time as I should looking at inspiring works; the work you’re asked to do is usually part of a grand design so there’s little point spending much time analyzing other designs until your head hurts. That being said, playing other games, watching movies and keeping an eye on what everyone else is doing gives creative people plenty to chew on
I spend more time looking at artistic works though, like concepts, architecture, blue prints and photos of amazing locations.


INS_Haditha - An original map for Insurgency (HL2)

6. SnarkPit: What is the most important step or aspect in designing a level for you?

Chris: If I had to pick one part of the design process it would be the white boxing stage; here you build a very crude playable version of the level so you can get a feel for it. No matter what type of level your making this will be invaluable.

At this point you can start to see what works and doesn’t, see potential performance, pacing and checkpoint issues. Of course it’s not as simple as that, there’s a lot of educated guessing at this point if the technology is a work in progress, game mechanics never work well together at this stage and you’ll have to put up with thousands of nasty bugs. I suppose this is where “experience” really comes in handy; it takes a few projects to gain the confidence required to help shape the entire game before full production starts.

7. SnarkPit: What three pieces of advice would you have for an aspiring level designer?

Chris:
-If your goal is to get a job in the games industry ... don’t rush, take your time to get enough experience and contacts to turn your dream into reality. A lot of people these days are rushing the process and end up with half-assed work that really won’t impress the majority of developers and that’s not good for your reputation!
-When you have some decent skills, join a modification team so you can experience working with a team, the chances of the modification being finished are slim but even if it doesn’t, you’ll have some nice work to show and proof you can work with others.
-Try your hardest to actually finish some levels; it’s incredibly tempting to keep starting new ones when you run into some hurdles. It’s learning how to overcome those challenges that teaches you the most. Don’t give up!


An UNREAL Engine 3 pre-production showcase for PS3

8. SnarkPit: What other hobbies or careers do you work/study in and do you think they compliment your level design knowledge and or skills?

Chris: I used to play and teach drums semi professionally, it taught me how to work with a team and how to be more patient with others.

I suppose reading interviews of my favourite drummers gave me some insight into the importance of making friends and connections if you’re perusing a long career in the entertainments industry. It’s a very small world
If I had to hand pick the perfect combination of subjects to study it’d be traditional art, architecture and geography, all of which would help me in some way or another but are certainly not required by any means!

9. SnarkPit: What should a beginning level designer focus on the most in attempting to develop their skills?

Chris: First find a game that you REALLY enjoy and that is without doubt the most important thing. If you love the game you’re going to enjoy making your own maps for it! Don’t worry about the graphics engine, the age of the game or how many people play it.

It’s very important when you start learning something new that you enjoy it. These days there are so many game engines, tools and tutorials it’s easier than ever to get started and find the help you need. Post your maps on forums and try and be as open as possible to constructive criticisms, it’s something I’m still trying to be better at, there’s always a part of me “that’s always right” and slowly I’m losing that attitude for the better.

10. SnarkPit: What's the most valuable lesson you've learned about level design?

Chris: That the best results really do come from a team effort; when you’re working on custom levels by yourself it’s easy to forget. You’ll find experts on every little thing that can boost the quality of your level considerably but you have to be open to suggestions and change.


Citylife - a contributed original map for the NMRIH HL2 mod

11. SnarkPit: How important is optimization to you in designing a level, and how much of your time would you say you commit to it out of the entire level design process?

Chris: I take great pride in my levels running as well as they possibly can, it’s somewhat of a personal challenge. I always said that I would make the “best looking - performance ratio” map to date, to some extent I still try and uphold that today.
Now that I’m developing on both the Xbox and PS3, it’s essential for me to have a broad technical understanding of hardware and engine limitations. This is something you develop over many years but I really love it.
At least a good quarter of my time at Crytek is directly connected to performance, working with programmers, artists and other designers to get the most we can out of dated hardware. Rest assured that there are allot of fantastic tools that make the task quite easy to get your head around; you certainly don’t need to be a rocket scientist.

12. SnarkPit: What are some of your "level design philosophies?

Chris: A few things I heard over the years keep recycling in my head,
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there’s nothing left to add, but when there’s nothing left to take away!

This is so true for anything design related, when you start a new level you keep adding to a point where it’s so full nothing is clear anymore. Take a look at your map when it’s very busy both visually and design wise and say to yourself does it really contribute to the experience?
The best designers I know make good judgment calls when relating to the overall experience; as a level designer you have to constantly moderate decisions made by others. Specialized departments will usually be focused on their job and not always see the big picture. If you blindly keep adding to make everyone happy you’ll end up with a cluttered mess and then everyone suffers.

“Less is more”
Is the same philosophy as above and took me many years to practically understand this.

13. SnarkPit: What percentage ratio of work would you say you do outside the level design program of choice versus within it to complete your map?

Chris: I spend about 2/3rds of my time actually working with the level editor, this changes considerably at different stages in the project though. At the start you’ll use it less; at the end you’ll use it more. The rest of the time is taken up with meetings, emails, bug fixing and helping others out.


cp_yeehaw - A control point map for TF2

14. SnarkPit: Are there any special programs you use when designing and building a level?

Chris: You’ll come across many level editors, that mostly work the same way with differing interfaces, but there is some software that I’ll be using forever no matter the game engine or toolset.

-Adobe Photoshop:
Covers just about all the requirements for making pretty pictures, reference boards and placeholder textures etc.
-3D Packages / Maya / Max / XSI
You don’t need to learn the advanced features of these programs, but learning basic polygon modeling techniques is very useful for just about any project.
-MS Word
Writing documents is a small part of the job but an important one. I still suck with MS Word, but I’m at a point where it’s acceptable; it’s useful to know how to make PDF documents too.
-Version Control Software / SVN / Perforce
This is an incredibly important piece of software: When you’re working with large teams, all files are added to a central server and updates to these files are managed here. SVN is free so it’s good to get your head around this.

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We certainly appreciate the time Chris took to respond to our interview, and eagerly look forward to his new works when they're released. Thank you!

P.S. Crysis 2 will be amazing!


If you're interested in giving an interview and feel that you qualify, feel free to check out our questions and criteria for submitting an entry here. We'd be glad to hear what you have to say!