This Week's Featured Interview ...
Kevin Saunders
Lead Designer, Obsidian Entertainment
by Jeannie Novak
Founder & Lead Writer

SANTA ANA, CA -- Kevin Saunders programmed his first game, a ‘port’ of Intellivision’s Astrosmash, on a ZX81 at the age of six. His official career as a game designer evolved from his graduate research in environmental engineering.
This research included lab experiments that required 24-hour monitoring over 2-3 day periods. These lengthy experiments gave Kevin the time to explore the world of online games and led to an opportunity to work on Nexon’s Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, which launched in 1998 to become one of the world’s earliest MMOGs. Kevin subsequently designed and produced Shattered Galaxy, the world’s first MMO real-time strategy game. More recently, Kevin has worked at Electronic Arts (Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth) and Obsidian Entertainment (Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords). Kevin earned his
Master of Engineering degree from Cornell University.

According to Kevin, the first step in designing a level is usually outlining its design on paper. This process generally takes only an hour or two and includes answering questions such as:

■ What is the player’s primary goal?
■ How long should the level take to complete?
■ What emotions is the level attempting to invoke in the player?
■ What is the setting of the level?
■ What additional art assets will be required?
■ What resources (e.g., characters, troops, items) will be available
to the player?
■ Who will the player encounter?
■ What side quests will help lead the player through the level?

"After fleshing out the design, it is generally best to create a rough layout for the level, and then incorporate all scripting before making the level beautiful. By completing the scripting early in the level design process, you can test the game play before investing time in its aesthetics. If a level plays well, you’ll find a way to make it pretty, but the reverse isn’t necessarily true."

Complete creation and testing of a level generally takes from two to six weeks, depending upon the tools available and the type of game.