10 Perfect Examples Of Level Design In Video Games

There’s a reason this particular location is one of the most fondly remembered: it’s expansive, but intelligible, somehow avoiding the trap of seeming overly cluttered or incoherent, despite its relative scope.

Visually, it’s one of the more interesting environments in the game, but it’s also one of the most heterogeneous. It’s comprised of several unique landmarks and settings – including the lighthouse, morgue and docks – as well as a casino, a beatnik jazz club, a cat race-track (or, cat-track), and a high rollers lounge, making it one of the more varied environments in the game.

Regardless, the layout is completely coherent, the various characters distributed logically, the objectives carrying the player across the entire expanse of the town, from one side to the other. It’s also one of the more comprehensible sections of the game, every item located in a reasonable place, every puzzle logically solved, providing adequate challenge without irritating the player with countless nonsensical, bizarre solutions (like filling a deflated balloon with cement to block the postal service).

There’s a popular consensus that the game takes a nose-dive after this particular section – and while the story and characters are pretty consistently great throughout – there’s no denying how superior this section is compared to the rest of the game in terms of its level design, which is multifaceted and logical simultaneously.