Game professionals create Bangai-O levels in the spirit of charity

by JC Fletcher { Sep 3rd 2008 at 3:00PM }

IGN, D3, and The Guildhall have teamed up to host an exclusive Bangai-O Spirits level contest between game industry professionals. The winner will have a $10,000 graduate fellowship donated to The Guildhall in his name -- which means that some graduate assistant is going to pay the rent with one of these Bangai-O levels.

IGN has all nine levels, from designers at Infinity Ward, Infinite Interactive, and other such prestigious studios, available for download and voting. It's really interesting to see what people who think about levels for a living do with the Bangai-O rule set. Harvey Smith, lead designer of Deus Ex, made an arena for super-annoying FastBots; Infinite's Steve Fawkner replicated the Atari classic Warlords.

All of the levels -- many of which tend toward the baroque -- are great, but our favorite is the simplest one: Shane Hensley's "Pinball Wizard," designed to imitate a pinball playfield. It looks stark, but explodes into bullets in a way that is startling even for Bangai-O.

Gallery: Bangai-O Spirits

Tags: bangai-o-spirits, d3, shooter, the-guildhall, treasure

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Nigeria @ Sep 3rd 2008 3:39PM

I keep flip flopping on this game. Today I love it. Sometimes it can be so exhilarating, then so frustrating. Mostly it's premature ejaculation. Three seconds then I die?

Anyway, I'll download.

Dig @ Sep 3rd 2008 11:49PM

...

Great analogy?

Ricardo @ Oct 28th 2008 7:54PM

how can I upload my own custom stages? I have a few based on Contra, Space Raid (Atari) and "That Activision Upside-Scrolling Fuel-Tank-Eater-Airplane Shooting game" for Atari 2600 whose name I don't remember... lol!

I even have one using the efects of gravity!