Hello folks! I’m one of the designers here on Southend currently working on ilomilo. I contribute to the overall gamedesign of the game and I am also responsible for designing and creating the levels, so today I’m going to talk a little about the leveldesign of ilomilo.
First of all, how do I build the levels? Well, since the entire game is in 3D and utilizes all sides of the cubes, it’s easiest to use a 3D software rather than pen and paper (Still my favourite tools for leveldesign), so I build the levels using the 3D software “Maya”, which is the same software we use for creating all the 3D graphics in ilomilo. The levels are constructed entirely out of cubes, so it’s much like building stuff out of LEGO. After I’ve built a level, I use a special script to copy the position of all objects in a Maya scene to a text file, which the game reads as a level file. It’s easy when you’ve got the hang of it.
3D software
Building levels for ilomilo is quite a challenging task. It’s a 3D puzzle game so it can easily turn very complex and overwhelming. I need to balance the levels so they are challenging, but not ridiculously hard to complete and also (and most importantly), that they are fun to play and contains varied gameplay.
When coming up with level ideas I usually start with the overall “theme” of the level and what cubes it shall contain. Then I ask myself questions like “What is the main puzzle?”, “How can I make the two characters help each other without meeting up directly?”, “How is this level different from the others?”. When I have the idea itself I build the levels in half a day or so.
A set of cubes. I use these to build all the levels.