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Game Development vocabulary · Level Design

Critical path

Meaning in game development, with examples

nounCommon term

In game development, critical path means: The shortest route through a level or game that the player must follow to finish it, as opposed to optional side areas, secrets and side quests.

In Turkish: ana yol, kritik yol, zorunlu ilerleme yolu

How it is used

Level designers make the critical path clear with lighting, landmarks and the shape of the level, and QA tests it first. A secret is 'off the critical path'. In project management the term has a different meaning: the chain of tasks that sets the end date.

Example sentences

  1. The critical path takes about 12 hours; with side quests it's closer to 40.

  2. Players kept leaving the critical path because the exit was too dark to notice.

Common collocations

  • off the critical path
  • follow the critical path
  • critical path time
  • side content
  • level designThe work of creating the spaces a game takes place in, such as maps, missions and stages, and deciding where players go, what they meet and how hard it is.
  • pacingThe rhythm of a level or game: how action, exploration, story and quiet moments are mixed and timed so that players stay interested without getting tired.
  • open worldA large game world that players can explore freely and in almost any order, instead of moving through a fixed series of levels.
  • checkpointA point in a level where the game saves the player's progress, so after failing or dying they start again from there instead of from the beginning.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Level Design

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