Mandate of Heaven is a singleplayer level for Crysis that I developed over the course of a year in 2009/2010. This was my first open-ended level, as well as first nature setting. In this article, I'll describe this project's goals and attempts, explain my decisions, and consider its successes and failures.

Every gamer has experienced these moments of admiration, being taken aback by the genius of a layout, the mightiness of a building, the detail of an environment, or the look of a beautiful landscape. With nowadays competition at best graphics or most immersive experiences, it is important for a level to feature such mind-blowing moments to leave a mark on the player. This essay aims at encyclopedically describing the multiple "hooks" that a level or game can use to achieve this.

I recently played through F.E.A.R. 2 and noticed that while the level design can be pretty complex at times, it's always instinctively clear where you're supposed to go next. This isn't an easy goal to achieve when designing a level, guiding the player subtly so it flows smoothly without being too obvious. I established a visual list of the different tricks used to guide players. Some of these techniques are specific to the game or the FPS genre, but others can be adapted to any type of level.

This article describes my line of thoughts and approach to creating a singleplayer level for Crysis, a game that combines a linear progression but huge open environments and multiple ways to reach the same location. While not exactly qualified as free-roaming compared to games like Gran Theft Auto or Oblivion, that kind of design has different needs and possibilities than other, classical linear shooters.

KF-CornerMarket is my submission to the Killing Floor Mapping Contest. I developed it within the month of July 2009, from soon after the announcement to the deadline of the first wave, to the 31th of July. This article is a description of how I went about creating this level, and a conclusion on what went right or wrong.

I am no menu or interface designer whatsoever, only a player who is occasionally surprised by the lack of quality of some game menus and astonished to see the same annoying mistakes repeated over and over again. This isn't a handbook to designing great menus. It is rather a list of the things I think should be avoided at all costs or considered with caution.