what is classed as an environment?
I believe a environment is a place filled up with people,creature/animals, plants or objects. environments like that in games which are normally open world have many different types as there are parts of maps that normally lacks in living beings or animals but will have small parts on plants and wildlife that are able to survive in those conditions, in Shadow of mordor for an example when you go into mordor there are a small minority of plants as they have been either used for other means or they have dies due to the extreme heat, with the orcs taking over.
An environment will normally be affected by humans or other living beings in games and these as you will never go somewhere in a game where no one has ever gone before as there will always be some sort of crates or boxes that would indicate other people has been there.
Are games levels restricted to being Digital?
Game levels are digital for the majority but there will be board games created that will also have a level base system. As with digital game levels board game levels with split up into different parts that could go with a story or a reason to do some steps. level could also mean that the player moves higher up on a board game like in snakes and ladders one of the earliest board games as you are able to move up and down levels to reach the end by going up snakes and down ladders .
Level flow can be affected while playing a game and is mainly affected by the environment as where items or objects are placed on the map will mean you are more likely top go there as if there is a rare item/weapon or money the player is more likely to go there and also on multiplayer games you are more likely to go for higher ground so you have more cover and an easier chance to get the opposing team it basically refers to how players move through a level.
Levels are not just in board games or digital games as they are also in games like paint balling or laser quest, as some ‘maps’ have certain objectives to do as some will be capture the flag some will be team death match and some will be domination or have something to capture, each of these is a type of level that you will have to do while coming up against other people, this means that the difficulty could be varied depending on if you are against people who play them often or not similar to that of digital games.
MBritchford 