Creating the game space for the player to explore is another aspect of game development that can prove daunting. Despite all the games we’ve played, it can be hard to actually break down what makes a good level or environment. Today, I’m going to try and shed some light on this topic, and explore how there is a difference between level design and environment design.

创建游戏空间供玩家探索是游戏开发的另一个方面，这可能会令人望而生畏。 尽管我们玩过所有游戏，但要真正打破构成良好关卡或环境的原因却很难。 今天，我将尝试阐明该主题，并探讨关卡设计和环境设计之间的区别。

世界大厦： (World Building:)

Both terms “level design” and “environment design” may be viewed as interchangeable by developers, but to be able to talk critically about games, I’m going to separate them.

开发人员可能会认为“关卡设计”和“环境设计”这两个术语可以互换，但是为了能够严格地谈论游戏，我将把它们分开。

Environmental design has become a major part of how game designers treat their game spaces over this decade. Some examples would be crafting decaying cities in the Souls series, to the original environment of Horizon Zero Dawn, and many more.

在过去的十年中，环境设计已成为游戏设计师如何对待游戏空间的重要组成部分。 例如将“灵魂系列”中的腐朽城市制作到“ 地平线零黎明”的原始环境等等。

Environmental design is about the aesthetics, architecture, and in some cases the lore of the world. You’re not just building a crazy mix of platforms and rooms, but a coherent world that feels as alive (or dead) as possible. The rise of environmental design has gone hand-in-hand with the popularity of open-world games. Treating your game space this way had lead to some of the best titles released this decade.

环境设计是关于美学，建筑，在某些情况下还涉及世界的知识。 您不仅要构建疯狂的平台和房间组合，而且要建立一个尽可能充满生命(或死亡)的连贯世界。 环境设计的兴起与开放世界游戏的普及紧密相连。 以这种方式对待您的游戏空间导致了本十年中发行的一些最佳游戏。

With that said, there is one limitation that has reared its head. Games that focus on environmental design may be pretty to look at, but may not offer much in terms of actual content. For that, we turn to level design.

话虽如此，但有一个局限性已经抬高了头。 专注于环境设计的游戏可能看起来不错，但就实际内容而言可能并没有提供太多帮助。 为此，我们转向关卡设计。

应对挑战： (Crafting the Challenge:)

Level design, in the context of this article, will refer to the act of creating content with the explicit purpose to test the player. In this case, it’s the act of creating a challenge; be it through enemy placement, traps, or a specific test within the game space.

在本文的上下文中，关卡设计将涉及创建内容的行为，其明确目的是测试玩家。 在这种情况下，这就是挑战的行为。 无论是通过敌方放置，陷阱还是游戏空间内的特定测试。

If we’re talking about open-world games, level design also refers to missions that lock the player in a specific area. The purpose of level design is to create interactive situations (or events) within the environment. A popular term for this in open-world games is “points of interest.”

如果我们在谈论开放世界游戏，关卡设计还指将玩家锁定在特定区域的任务。 关卡设计的目的是在环境中创建交互式情境(或事件)。 在开放世界游戏中，一个流行的术语是“兴趣点”。

Typically, level design is hard-coded by the designer (although there are exceptions, such as Spelunky). As a designer, you’re thinking smaller than the full game space, but deeper in terms of the area that you’re working in. While environmental and level design work in tandem, it’s about two different goals.

通常，关卡设计由设计人员进行硬编码(尽管有例外，例如Spelunky )。 作为设计师，您的想法比整个游戏空间要小，但要涉及的工作范围要更深。尽管环境和关卡设计协同工作，但这是两个不同的目标。

建筑师还是陷阱制造者？ (Architect or Trap Maker?)

For today’s video games, it’s not about viewing the design of your game strictly from an environmental or level design point of view, but combining them both. The goal is to create a game space that feels alive, but at the same time, there should be challenge within the world.

对于当今的视频游戏，并不是要从环境或关卡设计的角度严格地查看游戏的设计，而是将两者结合在一起。 目标是创建一个充满生机的游戏空间，但与此同时，世界范围内也将面临挑战。

The example I have in mind today would be Blighttown from Dark Souls. From an environmental standpoint, Blighttown is a decaying shanty town with a giant poison lake at the bottom. The place is dirty, disgusting, and a place for the forgotten to live.

我今天想起的例子是“ 黑暗灵魂”中的枯萎镇。 从环境角度看，Blighttown是一个腐烂的棚户区，其底部有一个巨大的毒湖。 这个地方肮脏，令人恶心，是一个被遗忘者居住的地方。

From a level design standpoint, Blighttown features several key aspects of challenge. You have moving between the different floors, enemies spitting poison darts, the dreaded elevator, and moving through the poison at the bottom.

从关卡设计的角度来看，Blighttown具有挑战的几个关键方面。 您要在不同楼层之间移动，敌人会吐出毒镖，令人恐惧的电梯，然后在底部的毒药中移动。

In this way, Blighttown’s challenge felt like an organic growth from the environment the designers created.

这样，Blighttown的挑战就像是设计师创造的环境的有机增长。

Many open-world games tend to treat environmental and level design as two separate entities. You have the wide world where nothing really happens or challenges the player, and then the set missions or challenges that are engaging. There has been a push towards having an “AI Life” system or having the game generate situations to happen; either procedurally or random events.

许多开放世界游戏倾向于将环境和关卡设计视为两个独立的实体。 您拥有一个广阔的世界，其中什么也没有发生或真正挑战玩家，然后是设定的任务或挑战。 人们一直在努力建立“ AI Life”系统或让游戏产生情况。 程序性事件或随机事件。

This is not the same as having the game spawn situations around the player, but having them happen organically with or without the player’s involvement.

这与在玩家周围产生游戏情况不同，但在有或没有玩家参与的情况下自然发生。

The point is that you need to think about things from both a world view and at the moment to moment layer in order to create an engaging game space.

关键是，您需要从世界观和时时刻刻考虑事物，以创建一个引人入胜的游戏空间。

最佳世界： (The Best Worlds:)

Games over this past decade have shown just how much thinking about a video game from an environmental and level design standpoint can elevate a game. If you want your game to stand out, you have to deliver on a beautiful-looking world that also has things to do in it. Creating great levels or game spaces takes a lot of work, and we’ll be talking about the key traits of that in an upcoming post.

在过去的十年中，游戏已经显示出从环境和关卡设计的角度考虑视频游戏可以提升游戏水平。 如果您想让自己的游戏脱颖而出，则必须打造一个外观漂亮的世界，其中也有很多事情要做。 创建出色的关卡或游戏空间需要大量工作，我们将在下一篇文章中讨论其关键特征。

This article was written by Super Jump contributor, Josh Bycer. Josh is also the creator of Game-Wisdom.

本文由 Super Jump 贡献者 Josh Bycer撰写 。 Josh还是 Game-Wisdom 的创造者 。