Naughty Dog’s Michael Barclay started the “blocktober” hashtag with a tweet on Oct. 1, and now we’ve all been given a look at levels from some of the industry’s biggest games during their planning stages. It’s an interesting part of the design process that fans aren’t often able to see.
“Blocking out” or “blocking in” an area in a game is done to show the scale of an area and to plan how the player will move through it. World of Level Design described it like this:
There are no details added, no texture work or lighting in the blocking phase. Everything is extremely rough. You want to be very flexible and being able to change things around.
Work the whole map; do not focus on any one part. You want to block in as much as you can as fast as you can. You want to jump into your map and start testing gameplay and how fun it is in the blocking stage.
Barclay wanted to show off some of that work.
What's up level designers. Level blockouts are art. #blocktober should be a thing. #leveldesign #gamedev #gamedesign #inktober #animtober pic.twitter.com/UkjjzlrCsv
— Michael Barclay (@MotleyGrue) October 1, 2017
Others followed suit.
Uncharted 4 island arrival. #leveldesign #blocktober pic.twitter.com/fPaOKik1Co
— Em Schatz (@thegreatbluebit) October 1, 2017
And the examples continued to come in.
Loving #Blocktober where LD's show early blockouts! Here's WarGames from #Titanfall. The orange/green area was a "Lagoon" style that was cut pic.twitter.com/gaGDXVfFLD
— Jason McCord (@MonsterclipRSPN) October 2, 2017
Some of my early iterations of Prologue and the Swarmak battle from Gears 4. #Blocktober pic.twitter.com/Na3B4Nv8Hf
— Nic Wechter (@NicWektar) October 2, 2017
Some early, unused blockouts of the camp site and village from Everybody's Gone to the Rapture #Blocktober pic.twitter.com/xNzyDT4SmT
— Andrew Crawshaw (@andrewcrawshaw) October 2, 2017
More of Echo 11 from Star Citizen for #Blocktober #gamedev #leveldesign pic.twitter.com/Zff5pMMt6i
— Sean Noonan (@SeanNoonan) October 2, 2017
So #Blocktober, where LDs share their early level blockouts, is a (very cool) thing. Here's my layout for the Ch06 school in Dead Space 2. pic.twitter.com/3yWUwof8i3
— Matthias Worch (@mworch) October 2, 2017
Some layout work for #PAYDAY2 a few years ago. #Blocktober #gamedev pic.twitter.com/0yDJZ49xup
— Jason Mojica (@generalvivi) October 2, 2017
The hashtag itself has many more examples, and is a great way for level designers to show off the work that often goes uncelebrated in the industry.