Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy Designer Diary #3

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is the follow-up to the acclaimed 2002 action game Jedi Knight II. In previous editions of our designer diaries, we've heard various designers at Raven Software discuss the game's artwork and its characters. In this third and final installment, Raven designers will discuss the game's levels and overall pacing.

Level Design

Some levels let you make the most of your Force powers.

I am a new designer at Raven, and I started work in August 2002 on Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. I can't even begin to explain how great it has been to get to know and work with the many great people at Raven. I'm also still not able to really grasp the amazing fact that my first task was to design levels for a Star Wars game! I have been a huge fan of the Star Wars universe since I managed to grow brain cells and gained the ability to use all my senses. Needless to say, I am extremely lucky to be part of such a great company that has had a chance to weave its own stories into the fabric of the Star Wars mythos.

My particular role in the design process was to help plan out a number of the levels in the early meetings and then draw ideas of "flow" and "look" out on paper for approval. Once this stage was completed, we moved quickly into the early "fleshing out" stage of level design to obtain the basic flow and size of each level. The next part of the process allowed us to incorporate some updated Quake III engine technology into our initial detailing passes on the levels. Once the levels had their basic flow, playability, size, lighting, and detail in place, we began to really concentrate on the play and fun of the levels.

From other members of the team, I have seen firsthand the extreme effort to incorporate some of the coolest player creation possibilities, saber moves, and Force powers all into one amazingly fun package. It has been a great learning experience to be able to design environments to house all of these wonderful assets. I was even lucky enough to be able to do design for both the single-player and multiplayer parts of the project.

One of the highlights of the process, for me, was to be able to help incorporate a great deal of new Q3-based technology into the process. The compiling tools and editor were updated significantly, allowing us to really expand what we were able to do in many ways.