Video Game Inspirations

My dream of level design came of course from video game level designs, growing up on the mid-late SNES, and being fully into gaming right at the start of the N64 made it a very impactful experience to see these imaginative worlds and locales be exposed to me over my early developemental stages of youth. Games like Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time all had such amazing places to see, it was akin to going on a vacation to a faraway place whenever I wanted within my own home.
Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie had such gorgeously themed levels, it really just stuck with me over the years, everytime I play a game that has a level or setting in a snowy area, I expect snowmen and igloos - period. Back when 3d level design was young, there was such a need for easy to communicate information so that the player would not be lost or confused - the fact it was 3d was enough to amaze, the whimsical world was the right touch to make different places feel different. A lava land has volcanoes, a haunted place has a dark purple and dark green colour scheme with crooked houses, a snowy place (Again) has to have snowmen.
Ocarina of Time was so starkly different from these games in the way that everything felt right, it made sense, it was real - or atleast as real as a game world could be at that time. A lava filled place was not plagued with volcanoes and lava rivers, but instead with things that a person could actually believe could occur on Earth, as in, it was a beleivable sense of level design. The forest area was filled with trees, it made sense. It sounds funny to write this down, because it's so obvious to everyone now, but at the time this had not been done (Or, I should say, it hadn't been done well) before - and it showed the world that video games were different than cartoons, they could be real, and have real messages.

These are big themes to extract from simple levels, but that's the thing, they aren't simple. In a game you exist within the level, the story hinges around the world, if the place your in doesn't make sense, nothing will - level design makes a game its own, gives it a place, makes it memorable. These games (And of course dozens of other N64 games) shaped my love of creation of space, and I hope one day to make another child think about how the space around him affects everything he does.