I remember back in the day of NES, good games have levels that introduce different mechanics whereas bad games only have different background colours. (Megaman 2 vs back to the future)
In today's games, somehow this is absent in many so called great titles.(no names will be give to avoid upsetting people) Thus, I would give a few level designs that I think are cool and will introduce more depth to the game.
Lava land: a place where most of the ground is covered with hot and toe roasting lava. Players have to actively avoid the lava while avoiding monsters and projectiles coming out of it. After getting the fireproof magic boots, players can walk on lava without taking any damage thus are able to reach some secret areas.
Ice land: the level is inside a big ice castle or on an ice glacier. Players will lose their balance easily and are having trouble running. But monsters on the other hand, can launch themselves like missiles at you and knock you on your button. Getting the ice climber boots will drastically increase your grasp.
Water world: ... I have never seen any good water levels in video games, so sorry. If there are any, please make it so that I don't have to grab water bubbles to survive. Just give player a diver's mask and let them go on with their lives.
Wind land: strong tornadoes will ravage across the level, and player has to actively seek cover when they are nearby. Also, tornadoes will leave treasures and even monsters, dead npcs at its trail.
Dungeon: generally dark areas filled with monsters, shrines, and traps. Each dungeons will have a big guy to kill at the end and have some magics to learn. They can be sorted into the following classes.
1. catacombs: undead riddled underground mass graves. Containing many coffins, and tomb stones and some shrines. Monsters in these places are usually weak against fire but these dungeons are very dark, so players have to advance slowly.
2. Mage lairs: towers or basements build by insecure ancient mages. They are filled with magic traps, summoning circles, magic based puzzles (teleport puzzle, horde mode, magic dual, and so on), usually there will be a giant hellish monster at the end guarding the mage's corpse.
3. Ancient steampunk underground cities: filled with metal beasts and other gear filled contraptions. Hot erupting steam and giant rotating gears are the puzzle focus here.
4. Animal caves: bears, spiders and monkeys giant rats are residents of these nasty caverns. These caves are usually maze like with vines on the spider web decorated walls. Human and other carcasses are all in piles at the ends of each tunnels. Even though there is no external light source, the cave is somehow not terribly dark, unlike the catacombs.
5. Bandit camps: nothing much to say here.
6. Demon portals: make it red and hard, preferably covered with lava and filled with demonic dogs. I don't have much ideas on this one, I'm not asked to come up something unique. May be some one can leave a comment here and posting your ideas for a cool and unique dungeon environment.
7. Haunted abandoned houses: i'm surprised how not many of these can be found in today's games, except of Witcher 2 and a few others, and they are among the best. Don't fill these up with fights. Make the lighting weird, put hallucinations around, and play some eerie background music, some scary puzzles would also be great. Like tearing off a screaming human faced flower's petals and use them as offerings to unlock the way out and to tell the story behind the place.
8. Arenas: some times, all people wants are mindless fun of killing monsters and proving their strength. These levels are easy to make, and are a lot of fun to play. Multi-player support would be even more awesome.
9. Over designed torture mansions. I know, mansion is a strange word to be used with torture, but please let me explain in. It's like the clock tower levels in castlevania but with more enemies and no platforming sections. Big swinging blades, traps that are filled with snakes, big blazing boulders being rolled down at you, the possibilities are endless here.
10. Gigantic nearly endless dungeon chain: A 30 leveled dungeon that is filled with monsters, loots and has increasing difficulty as you progress through it. It's just like the original Diablo. Before anyone posting: "GRRR THIS ISNT DIABLO". It's cool, and fun. It's easy to make, it's rare in today's games. Many dungeon crawler and old school rpg fans are liking it, so why not. (I put many there just to make people shut up about only speaking for myself and such, every opinion is ONLY speaking for themselves, unless it's fact)
If you have encountered some memorable dungeons and levels, post them down below. Or just leave your positive thoughts to encourage some good-spirited discussions. If you dislike my type of humor, then feel free to make better jokes and show me how it should be done by a more mature and educated individual.
PS: I don't know why I stopped at 10. But these are all I know of, so, feel free to add things and correct me. (such as putting angry half eaten cows instead of monkeys in the caves)
Disclaimers: My opinions and jokes are only speaking for myself, and no facts that I can back up are in this post. Don't feel offended, because I'm not trying to offend anyone.
In today's games, somehow this is absent in many so called great titles.(no names will be give to avoid upsetting people) Thus, I would give a few level designs that I think are cool and will introduce more depth to the game.
Lava land: a place where most of the ground is covered with hot and toe roasting lava. Players have to actively avoid the lava while avoiding monsters and projectiles coming out of it. After getting the fireproof magic boots, players can walk on lava without taking any damage thus are able to reach some secret areas.
Ice land: the level is inside a big ice castle or on an ice glacier. Players will lose their balance easily and are having trouble running. But monsters on the other hand, can launch themselves like missiles at you and knock you on your button. Getting the ice climber boots will drastically increase your grasp.
Water world: ... I have never seen any good water levels in video games, so sorry. If there are any, please make it so that I don't have to grab water bubbles to survive. Just give player a diver's mask and let them go on with their lives.
Wind land: strong tornadoes will ravage across the level, and player has to actively seek cover when they are nearby. Also, tornadoes will leave treasures and even monsters, dead npcs at its trail.
Dungeon: generally dark areas filled with monsters, shrines, and traps. Each dungeons will have a big guy to kill at the end and have some magics to learn. They can be sorted into the following classes.
1. catacombs: undead riddled underground mass graves. Containing many coffins, and tomb stones and some shrines. Monsters in these places are usually weak against fire but these dungeons are very dark, so players have to advance slowly.
2. Mage lairs: towers or basements build by insecure ancient mages. They are filled with magic traps, summoning circles, magic based puzzles (teleport puzzle, horde mode, magic dual, and so on), usually there will be a giant hellish monster at the end guarding the mage's corpse.
3. Ancient steampunk underground cities: filled with metal beasts and other gear filled contraptions. Hot erupting steam and giant rotating gears are the puzzle focus here.
4. Animal caves: bears, spiders and monkeys giant rats are residents of these nasty caverns. These caves are usually maze like with vines on the spider web decorated walls. Human and other carcasses are all in piles at the ends of each tunnels. Even though there is no external light source, the cave is somehow not terribly dark, unlike the catacombs.
5. Bandit camps: nothing much to say here.
6. Demon portals: make it red and hard, preferably covered with lava and filled with demonic dogs. I don't have much ideas on this one, I'm not asked to come up something unique. May be some one can leave a comment here and posting your ideas for a cool and unique dungeon environment.
7. Haunted abandoned houses: i'm surprised how not many of these can be found in today's games, except of Witcher 2 and a few others, and they are among the best. Don't fill these up with fights. Make the lighting weird, put hallucinations around, and play some eerie background music, some scary puzzles would also be great. Like tearing off a screaming human faced flower's petals and use them as offerings to unlock the way out and to tell the story behind the place.
8. Arenas: some times, all people wants are mindless fun of killing monsters and proving their strength. These levels are easy to make, and are a lot of fun to play. Multi-player support would be even more awesome.
9. Over designed torture mansions. I know, mansion is a strange word to be used with torture, but please let me explain in. It's like the clock tower levels in castlevania but with more enemies and no platforming sections. Big swinging blades, traps that are filled with snakes, big blazing boulders being rolled down at you, the possibilities are endless here.
10. Gigantic nearly endless dungeon chain: A 30 leveled dungeon that is filled with monsters, loots and has increasing difficulty as you progress through it. It's just like the original Diablo. Before anyone posting: "GRRR THIS ISNT DIABLO". It's cool, and fun. It's easy to make, it's rare in today's games. Many dungeon crawler and old school rpg fans are liking it, so why not. (I put many there just to make people shut up about only speaking for myself and such, every opinion is ONLY speaking for themselves, unless it's fact)
If you have encountered some memorable dungeons and levels, post them down below. Or just leave your positive thoughts to encourage some good-spirited discussions. If you dislike my type of humor, then feel free to make better jokes and show me how it should be done by a more mature and educated individual.
PS: I don't know why I stopped at 10. But these are all I know of, so, feel free to add things and correct me. (such as putting angry half eaten cows instead of monkeys in the caves)
Disclaimers: My opinions and jokes are only speaking for myself, and no facts that I can back up are in this post. Don't feel offended, because I'm not trying to offend anyone.
