Thoughts about levels

[Loriel]

Originally Posted by Darklux

Iam trying to build simple levels, with a good mix of a good style and fast and easy ways for the player.
I doubt that most players even notice or pay attention to overstyled lvls.

This sounds exactly right to me. When I build levels, I try to leave the paths that I would actually expect players to take relatively free of both physical and optical clutter. I suppose the idea is that I try to use "detailing" not to make everything look pretty, but to guide the player through the levels and give hints about the underlying layout.

To contradict the OP, I actually think that tile errors are a huge deal, because they bring the player's attention to the fact that stuff is actually composed of tiles, and break the immersion into the game world. Of course, as long as players get drawn over the sides of tile-based trees and cannot pass behind pillars and everything, establishing immersion in the environment in the first place is probably somewhat tricky.

Of course, what do I know, I have not built anything interesting in years, or much less seen what other people do with their worlds.