I regularly have lots of interesting findings on the internet, that I post frequently on Microcontent, del.icio.us (also look into the footer, they are inbound also on this page) and soup. Somehow scanning that much sources can be unclear. For that reason will here present some recommended findings.

1.

First there is an interesting article on the Art and Science of Leveldesign. It’s a little older, but making levels is somehow the core-part of every game design and in that sense worth to think twice about that.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to define the role of the team member known as the ‘Level Designer’. Level design is as much an art as it is a science; it requires artistic skills and know-how as well as an extensive technical knowledge.”

2.

Right in this context I have an interesting link to a Boulder Dash archive site. The good thing is, that it also features an interview with Peter Liepa, the inventor of Boulder Dash. This definitely was one of the best readings I had in the last two months.

“But I started playing with basic elements of dirt, rocks, and jewels and within a couple of days had built the basic ‘physics engine’ of what was to become Boulder Dash. I realized that using a random number generator you could generate random caves, and that by controlling the density of rocks and jewels you could get some interesting game play. The game play was not only interesting from a puzzle standpoint, but it also appealed to various emotional drives – not only obvious psychotic ones like greed (collecting jewels), destructiveness (dislodging rocks and killing fireflies) – but more neurotic ones like cleaning all the dirt out of a cave.”

3.

Finally there is a podcast interview with Jack Tramiel. That’s the one who founded Commodore and after the big hit of the C64 he went over to Atari and made it successful. This short podcast was made because of the 25th anniversary of the C64. Just compare with a TV feature from 1985 with Jack Tramiel. See video below.

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