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Level Design

This part is mostly here to indulge myself in some random rambling. However, if you're not too sure what might make a Jak level a "Jak" level, then maybe this could interest you.

As the title implies, this is only my opinion of my personal analysis of Jak 1's level design and not some objective facts. You're obviously not forced to follow any of this and can even completely skip over it if you're just here for the "actual" guide.

Jak 1​

Gameplay​

Collectables​

First general thing that is striking about Jak 1's level design is the placement of collectables. They have a much more important function than just being there to be collected. They're usually placed very specifically so that you can see the way to go. You can almost always see the next collectables, and by the time you get those, you can see the next ones, etc.

Things are rarely, if ever, hidden in Jak 1. Instead, some collectables will sometimes be put quite on display, but a direct path isn't always obvious to force players into searching how they're supposed to reach that spot later on.

Difficulty​

The difficulty curve is also pretty specific in this game, while it's not a hard game at all, especially the first one, it does a few things to increase the difficulty. Casually, the game does not have any jump that is very hard on its own. The difficulty usually comes from having longer sequences where you can slowly lose health or have to cross many obstacles. The further into the game, the more obstacles will usually be put between a checkpoint and your next objectives, rather than just increasing the difficulty of each obstacle itself. That does still happen as well, but I think it's a much less important part of it.

There's no life system, only health points, so you can retry something as many times as you want, which is why increasing the number of obstacles you have to go through is more rewarding to getting better at the game instead of fluking one very hard obstacle.

There's definitely a balance to strike here for how long to go without a checkpoint, having to redo a very long part can become frustrating. Looking at you, Jak II.

Level Layouts​

All levels in Jak 1 don't follow one strict type of layout, however, there are two main layouts most levels that aren't hub or connector levels fall into:

  • Open-ended loops. In this layout, the level allows you to go around the level in a big loop from either side of it. This loop usually also has small branching paths to not make the loop obvious, but those paths rarely diverge much and are often either closed or come back to the loop pretty close to where it started so you're less likely to miss things in the level. Examples of these: Forbidden Jungle, Misty Island, Precursor Basin, Snowy Mountain, Gol and Maia's Citadel.
  • Linear loops. They are quite similar to the previous one. The big difference is that the level doesn't (normally) let you go backward to it. They have the same similar small diverging paths to break the linearity but the general level does loop in one direction back toward the start. Examples of these: Geyser Rock, Lost Precursor City, Boggy Swap.

The two other kinds of levels are the hub levels and the connector levels. These don't follow either of those two main layouts, as they serve a completely different purpose.

  • Hub levels. They mostly serve to give you the choice between each of the adjacent levels and to advance the story, though this is less important. Due to this, these levels are usually much more open and don't have as many obstacles as other "actual" levels. Examples of these: Sandover Village, Rock Village, Volcanic Crater.
  • Connector levels. As these are there as a link between two hub levels, they're almost strictly linear levels from point A to point B with very little in the way of diverging path except for shortcuts. Examples of these: Fire Canyon, Mountain Pass, Lava Tube.

The only two levels that don't really fit any of these criteria are Sentinel Beach and Spider Cave.

  • Sentinel Beach is probably the most open level without much in the way of actual paths. The level is, however, not like a big square, which helps make it easier to go through the level and find everything you need to do.
  • Spider Cave is more like three levels within one, not only in the file themselves but in the layout as well. The main room is a very open area that then leads to two different rooms, one as a linear loop for the dark cave and a fully open area with the robot cave.

Visuals​

Jak's visuals aren't something I've analyzed as much as the gameplay, but there's still a few things I can mention.

Art Style​

Jak 1's art style is quite cartoonish but not cel-shaded or anime-like. The textures are not vector-like, but instead more so hand painted to give them their distinct look.

Lighting​

Jak 1's lighting isn't super complex, but there's a few things that do give it its distinctive look, I actually personally tried to go a bit further than the base's game lighting with my levels. Normally, there's two main things about the lighting:

  • Contrast is pretty low, there's usually no really bright or really dark areas in a level. The only part of the game that has any visibility "issues" with low light is dark cave which is done completely on purpose for the gameplay, but the entirety of the rest of the game is always quite bright. Even at night time, nothing is hard to see.
  • The second thing is the smoothness of the lighting, everything is mostly smoothed out with no hard shadows or light, which makes sense for vertex color based lighting. More on that much later in this guide.

Visual Clutter​

This is actually a part where I think Jak 1's level design is quite interesting because it does something that you usually don't want to do much. Some areas/views can be very cluttered with details everywhere. This is usually something that's considered quite bad as it might be confusing for the players. However, the benefit of doing this is that it allowed ND to give the players some incredible set pieces to marvel at.

Another big reason why I don't think it's even that bad in this particular game is the point back about how collectables are placed to guide you through the level. Even when entering a very cluttered area, you'll always see some collectables that are easy to collect so you can follow that trail.

A big example of that would be entering the robot room of Spider Cave, you get an aerial view of the whole room which is cluttered with so many details, but yet you can also see some easy orbs at the start of a wooden ramp and work your way up following the trail.

I've tried to imitate that same kind of feeling when you go around the first corner of Crystal Cave and the level opens to a large area with a lot of details everywhere on screen for the same "wow factor". While at the same time showing some close by collectables that you can just reach and guide you through it.

The level's MMood Cohesion​

Each level in Jak 1 has a very specific unique mood and vibe to it. That mood is usually very similar within the same level and is only changed in very big obvious ways. The most striking examples of this are inside the temple in Forbidden Jungle and the dark cave in Spider cave.

That's also another thing where I deviated a bit from the main game and tried to have multiple different moods within the same level instead of a general one all over it. Which, in my opinion, worked out pretty well. As I said before, these aren't like "rules" that always need to be followed, but even if you want to break them, it's good to be aware of them.

Disclaimer​

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in everything I talk about here or even in anything. This guide is mostly there for the people that do have a big drive to create a custom level but don't know where to even start with all of it.

I'd also like to add that while I do not mind helping people here and there and you can ask me questions directly, I might not be able to help everyone if the number of questions does increase a lot.

This guide is here to try and explain most of what I do know. If you want to go even further than the topics that are explained here, there's a big chance I won't even be able to help you directly, at that point it's up to you to start learning on your own by poking in the code and messing around.

If you want me to do more stuff then you can't also steal all my time innit (^: