Richard Gray was the lead level designer on Counter-Strike: Condition Zero at Ritual Entertainment. He created several levels for Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes.
Richard notably prefers to sign all of his work, even professionally, under his alias Levelord and both Condition Zero and the Xbox version of Counter-Strike credit him as Levelord. He received this alias in 1994 when working on Blood at Q Studios.[1]
Biography
Richard Gray originally started his career working as a software engineer at a company called Bauer Aerospace.[2] He had wanted to get into the games industry since purchasing a Commodore 64 in 1983 but felt that writing game engines was too complicated.[2] When Doom Editing Utility was released, he fell in love with Doom level editing and soon released his first level pack, GrayDOOM, online.[3] This level pack caught the attention of Q Studios and Gray was offered a position on the Blood team which was his first job in the games industry.[2] This position eventually also landed him a job on the Duke Nukem 3D team at Apogee Software/3D Realms.[4]
In August 1996, Richard Gray left 3D Realms and founded his own company Hipnotic Interactive together with four other former 3D Realms employees.[2][5] They would release Scourge of Armagon,[6] a Quake mission pack, before the studio was renamed to Ritual Entertainment in June 1997 due to trademark issues.[7]
Richard Gray would contribute to the Counter-Strike series when Ritual Entertainment took over development of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike (Xbox) in August 2002. He acted as the lead level designer and was also responsible for three of the single-player missions for Condition Zero. Gray found working on the GoldSrc engine to be a fun experience as he felt that the relatively simple engine made it easier to concentrate on gameplay.[8]
Following his involvement with Condition Zero, Gray worked on future titles at Ritual Entertainment until the company was acquired by MumboJambo in 2007 and he started working on casual games.[9] Richard Gray retired in 2011,[1] but made a return in 2016 by designing levels for Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour.[10]
List of maps
Official maps
| Map name | Game(s) | Responsibilities | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alamo | 
|
Level designer | 2003 |
| Sandstorm |
|
Level designer | 2003 |
| Turn of the Crank |
|
Level designer | 2003 |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Shacknews | Where Are They Now: Richard 'Levelord' Gray
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 The Adrenaline Vault Online Games Magazine - Feature Article - In the Presence of Map Makers. Archived from the original on 1998-01-19.
- ↑ LevelEd - Masters of LevelDesign - Richard "Levelord" Gray. Archived from the original on 1998-12-05.
- ↑ Electric Playground -- Quake Feature -- People -- Levelord interview. Archived from the original on 1998-12-06.
- ↑ 3D Realms Site: Press Releases: Activision spreading misleading information about Duke Nukem Team
- ↑ Hipnotic Interactive Inc.. Archived from the original on 1997-01-12.
- ↑ Ritual Entertainment's SiN Press - Ritual Entertainment. Archived from the original on 1998-01-25.
- ↑ CS-Nation - interviews - levelord. Archived from the original on 2003-06-01.
- ↑ RITUALISTIC || Interviews || Going Small - How the MumboJumbo Merger Will Affect Ritual
- ↑ Gearbox Software – The King Is Back! Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour Arrives October 11th!
External links
- Richard Gray on Wikipedia