[coley]

I’ve commented about this book here before. It’s very useful across multiple disciplines. What drew me to it was video game level-design. There’s a section on how churches and temples often have these increasingly smaller and more intimate chambers as you go deeper into the building. I found it super helpful as a lot of these little details are difficult to intuit. I appreciate that you can open the book to almost any page and gain tremendous insight.

[crabmusket]

I was introduced to it, if I remember correctly, via a post on The Dark Mod forums (a Thief-like mod engine). The pattern in question was "positive outdoor space", on the importance of creating places between buildings, rather than just plopping discrete monoliths onto an empty plain.

(Funnily enough, the way the original Thief engine worked was beginning with a fully solid universe which the level designers would carve air volumes out of to create the level. This was due to how the engine prioritised sound propagation. So Thief levels had to have positive outdoor spaces!)

[Phiwise_]

>What drew me to it was video game level-design.

Was it Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design for you, too? I loved that book when I thought I was going to become a game designer. When someone like Schell spoke so highly of Alexander it was plain he had to must be something really special.