The Train2Game blog was recently fortunate enough to grab a chat with Volition’s Jameson Durall, Lead Level Designer of the upcoming Red Faction: Armageddon. In a wide ranging interview that’ll be of interest to anyone on a Train2Game course, Durall discussed the impressive Geo-Mod engine, how it impacts on Game Design, what goes on behind the scenes during game development at Volition, and revealed to us his tips for getting into the games industry.

In the first part of this interview, he talks about his role at Volition, how the Geo-Mod engine works, and how it impacts on Game Design in Red Faction: Armageddon. More about Game Design is available in part two, while in part three Durall speaks about getting into the games industry.

Train2Game blog: What does your role of Lead Level Designer with Red Faction: Armageddon mean? What have you contributed to the development of the game?

Jameson Durall: Well, I have a group of level designers and work together with those guys to make sure that we’re building the kind of environments we need for the most action packed, destructive areas that also help tell the story that we’re trying to tell in the game. So there’s a whole lot of working closely with them, trying to direct the areas in a way that fulfils those goals and make sure that we make the best levels possible.

Train2Game blog: The levels are based on the Geo-Mod engine; can you tell us how that works?

Jameson Durall: [Laughs] A smarter man than we would have to tell you exactly how it works! But simply the basics are that every building is built around a shard system. It has a state, and when it takes damage it breaks into smaller pieces. It’s a full physics engine, and so it takes real weight and stress, so anything we build in the game we have to be very realistic about how it’s constructed because anything on top is forcing weight down on to the stuff below. It gets a little more difficult when you want to make tall buildings, or things that look certain ways because you have to make sure you have real foundation at the bottom to hold the weight of the things you’re trying to do.

Train2Game blog: How does this affect the design of the levels and the story of Red Faction: Armageddon as a whole?

Jamson Durall: I’ve been designing levels for over ten years, and I’ve never had a challenge quite like this. You think about traditional shooters where a lot of enemies will come out from behind walls or they’ll open doors and the thing that we have to always consider is that the player could destroy the entire area before certain things start to happen. So we always had to think of each level as a mini-sandbox, where it’s like ‘Ok the player can do so many different things, so lets build each little encounter in a way that they have a lot more options plus we account for whatever they might do.’

It also forced us to do some things like come up with enemy types that now can actually come in through the walls; so we developed the ‘Monster Closet’ system so enemies can come in that way. And then things like the Wraith, it can literally appear anywhere, so we don’t have to worry about including visibility for things like that.

In part two of the Train2Game blog interview with Red Faction: Armageddon Lead Level Designer Jameson Durall, he tells us more about the Geo-Mod engine and how it impacts on every aspect of Game Design. Red Faction: Armageddon is released June 10^th. 

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