5 Tips for Great Level Design

5 Tips for Great Level Design

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Want to learn the secret to making great levels for your indie game? These 5 principles of level design should help you on your game dev journey! Subscribe for more game design related videos!

0:00 Intro
0:40 Have a Clear Goal
3:08 Keep it Fresh
5:21 Don't Waste Space
7:30 Following the Flow
10:11 Your Game is a Language

[ericeastland]

Knowing the language of your game is so important! There was a clear difference between the levels I designed at the beginning of my project versus the ones that came after I had fleshed out my world and mechanics some more.

[NeatGames]

Great tips! I've really enjoyed designing levels for my metroidvania :D

[icecp]

You have a very calming voice. I really like this style of video. Much love!

[morriganrenfield]

Just was complaining in a reddit thread about level design getting worse in devil may cry. Especially when 1/3 and the reboot exist in the series.

[anthonywritesfantasy]

There's a video on dungeon map making, that talks a lot about making it so there is more than one way into a dungeon, and also more than one way out. Also, using elevations creatively, having paths that loop, and when to telegraph "there might be treasure here, but are you up to the challenge?"

All great ideas not just for level design, but for experience design.

I think that's another thing, that Jonathan Blow tries to talk about a lot: it's about the experience. Celeste is a total masterclass at this, at giving you opportunities to find a fun new way to use the tools you already have, before putting an extreme challenge in front of you, and pushing you to use that fun new idea to its absolute limit.

[jameshughes]

i've been working on my first game for a few months. I found a great way to deal with this. just, make everything except for the levels and keep putting off building the levels for all of eternity :D These tips are super helpful. Feeling like I might actually finish now. Thanks for this.

[_xtel]

Banger video with lots of great info! Tip #3 really hit and made me think about my own levels.

[Amipotsophspond]

I bet you live in the city, star-dew valley is designed to capture a idealized small town feel. the long walk to the city is made to separate the city from your house and capture that remote feel. it's like if I was making a city game I might include a subway where you could get mugged in, meet a girl and fall in love, see a homeless man banging on buckets, or get pushed on to the tracks. I have never live in a city with a subway but I bet those are actual super rare things that unlikely to show the real feel of big city life. so maybe the subway should have advertisements that just lead to disappointment, when all the really great places are not advertised are something recommend by someone or that you discover. the walk is like the fishing mechanic something made to slow down the player stop achievement grinding. the point is that hike to the town is really well planned to make it a chore/event to go to town, something you do for a reason.

[goodpuppii]

This is super helpful as I start the level design process for a new game I'm working on. The part on language really resonated with me, and I can see how it will help me focus while laying out my levels. Cheers🤩

[alec_almartson]

Thank You for making this video.

These are excellent Tips, really helpful.

[RKIOrbMage]

Great video! Tip 5 was really uselful
+ 1 subscriber

[fierorecensione]

Very nice video but the point 5 is still a little bit unclear to me, let's make an example, what Celeste try to tell us in their levels?

[leafstormblaze]

That part in sterdew valley needs to be there so you can link it to modded towns.

[algi]

Pro tip for The Witcher 3: A lot of the minimap options can be turned off or changed in the options. Last time I played, I turned it into a The Witcher 1 style minimap that only shows the terrain and North is always up. The detective style quests are really trivial and boring with a fully functional minimap.

[mangoes]

Thats crazy, I was watching another YouTuber play animal well so I definitely got jumpscared by the opening

[AvectaInteractive]

Good tips thanks! Level layout and design looks so simple till you get into it and start hitting wall. Pardon the pun 🤪

[hiiambarney]

Eh.
There are harder things when it comes to making games than level design, at least for me personally.
The subtle languages are something you will pick up on given enough time in games spent at least somewhat picking them apart critically.
And level design is something that is really easy to pick up on, once you notice the shared lingo between games that you actually enjoy.
By the time Metroid Dread released it was very clear to me that I got constantly locked out from accessing areas that don't hold something I need to progress in the game, in more or less subtle ways.
When I first played Super Metroid, I didn't understand this concept intuitively yet.

As to what things I actually deem harder in game design?
For example:
Making a Camera. I mean... Making a GOOD Camera, excellent, perhaps.
This is so much harder because it's much less intuitive to pick up on simply by playing a game. It's not subtle light guiding you towards something hidden, it is supposed to be hidden.
And it's so much work which seemingly adds "nothing" to the game for the player as he doesn't notice it when it's applied.
He will notice how it's gone though and the entire game will suffer from it.
These aren't intuitive, they happen to need a lot of abstract thought put into them.
I played a TON of Super Mario World in my days, but before I put in the work, researching this topic, I could not have told you how it's camera system works without looking it up.

Try it for yourself.

Pick a game, similar to one of your projects, which you played a lot.
Ask yourself: "How did they handle the Camera in that game?"

Visual and Auditorial queues are much easier to pick up on, trust me.

[goldencookie]

Hey nice video. Do you have the platformer game you showed on your video up anywhere to play? I'd like to try it out.

[mpt]

Massive amounts of open space that have no purpose: Ah yes, the Halo series under 343 industries.

[whilefree]

Awesome video! Great tips!

What is the name of the platform game shown as the first scene in the intro?