Is Jimi Hendrix a Good Level Designer?

Speakers: Daniel Sussman, Eric Brosius

Track: Audio

Format: Lecture

Experience Level: All

Description: In most music games, your songs are your levels, which means that your sound designers are your level designers.

Music games need an interesting approach to level design. In many ways the content dictates the game experience. In the case of Guitar Hero, where each song is a game level, we had to come up with ways to provide a compelling game experience while working within the confines of the song. In this talk, we'll discuss the approach we took in Guitar Heros in choosing songs that make good levels, some of the tools we use to "level the playing field" and then finish with some examples.