[DOOM] John Romero's Level Design Rules

During the development of DOOM, John Romero came up with eight special rules to make his levels look and play as good as possible. This video discusses those rules and shows how they were applied all throughout Knee-Deep in the Dead, DOOM's iconic first episode.

For reference, the eight rules are as follows:
1. Always change floor height when changing floor textures. (0:28)
2. Use border textures between different wall segments and doorways. (1:05)
3. Be strict about texture alignment. (1:47)
4. Use contrast between light and dark areas and cramped and open areas. (2:25)
5. Make sure that if the player can see outside, he can somehow get there. (3:13)
6. Be strict about having several secret areas on each level. (3:53)
7. Make levels flow so that the player revisits areas to better understand the 3D space. (4:44)
8. Create several easily-recognizable landmarks for easier navigation. (5:49)

Original source:

For more information on John Romero's upcoming fifth episode for DOOM, Sigil, check out its official website at the following link:

[JaredBathurst]

Dr Phil talks about Doom level design.

[pagb]

Also in Quake, he added: "If you can build the level in Doom, you've failed"

[RainMakeR_Workshop]

He seems to have another rule in: "Show the reward before they can get it". Be it showing keycards, weapons or power ups, Doom often would show the player the reward before they can get to it or they may have already passed a secret access point they can now hunt for.

[stormykeep]

After playing so much Wolfenstein 3D in '92 '93, it completely blew my mind that you could "see" outside in Doom...and then later when playing discovering that you could actually go outside, nuked my mind! It's little things like that back in those days as games progressed that I miss.

[thomaseubank]

I've taken notes on what Romero said in interviews. Only things that I can add are:
1. Begin the level by asking yourself, "What would be a cool first thing to see?" or, "How can I open this level in an interesting way that makes the player want to explore?"
2. While having landmarks to help with navigation in circular level design, make sure to keep the level somewhat unsymmetrical. It is okay to have small parts symmetrical, but it becomes boring if he whole level is symmetrical. This factors into the contrast of space and lighting mentioned in the video.
3. As soon as your fps becomes too predictable, it is boring.

[ZanDevYT]

"Make sure that if the player can see outside, he can somehow get there"
I feel like this is the vital rule when making a difference between a current gen FPS and a "retro" FPS

[btarg]

You missed the most important one: make the last levels first.

[martok]

I remember about 100 years ago when I tried my hand with a Doom editor (I think it was called DoomEd), I started out a level with a circular room with one door leading out, a spawn point in the center or the room, and had placed two or three demons. As I went further into the level design itself, without having actually fired up the level for testing, my friend walked in and wanted to know how my progress was. I grinned, and decided to show him what I had so far. *I completely forgot, * at the very beginning of the level, right in that circular spawn point room, I had placed a few nasties in there. As soon as I rezzed up in the room, I was chomped by hungry demons within seconds. We were laughing our asses off. "Impressive, " he noted. "Well, you at least know how to make levels tough right off the bat." LOL! Ahhh...the good ol' days. Oh, Good Lord, the Hall of Mirrors effect got really annoying if you didn't watch your vertex placement.

[TheOneTrueMaNicXs]

I remember him saying that he would beat each stage starting with just the pistol to make sure it was fair. That being said he did use guns he picked up in the stage and he is a pretty good player.

[Lemunde]

I wish modern level designers would take a good long look at number 7. There seems to be this mentality that the player should be always moving forward. "Backtracking" isn't a four letter word. It's important that the player get the opportunity to become familiar with the level and be allowed to explore it rather than just have it be a complex but 1 dimensional hallway of enemies.

[fezzadork]

A lot of these rules seem like common sense, but I’ve played waaay too many custom maps (yes, including some of mine) where a lot of these tips have been blatantly disregarded. Otherwise fun and playable maps can be ruined by misaligned textures and inappropriate lighting. Those who design maps need to remember that this is YOUR world. You are the master of everything within it, from the teleporters to the tiniest vertex.

[redenginner]

Romero’s level design rules still should apply to modern games. I freelance game design on my campus (even though i don’t have the courses) and if someone makes a FPS for their senior project i always point to these rules.

[UnchainedEruption]

Here’s an important one to add: Never have your rooms shaped like rectangles or boxes. If they’re like rectangles, they’re boring to run through and uninteresting to look at. For example, take literally any vanilla map from Knee Deep through Plutonia and look at the level layout from the map view. You will never see any portion have straight lines. Lots of crooked paths that interweave with each other and branch out. Having a linear path is also a mortal sin. The player should be able to explore the map, not follow a single obvious way to go.

Another good one (also from Romero himself) is to never use symmetry. Symmetry is lazy because it’s in essence copy/paste, but moreover it’s always better to do something different, to surprise the player.

[StronkiTube]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought one of Romero's rules was also to always allow the player to get out of a pit that he can fall in.

[epIx]

I dont know why so many people disregard Romeros maps when in reality I find myself (without knowing) to enjoy his maps the most

[BalimaarTheBassFish]

I think I also heard somewhere where someone from iD said:

"Create your level, make sure you can run it blind folded and call that difficulty hard"

[thebaker]

John Romero is just a really cool dude.

[ScottishAtheist]

It's funny, back in 95 when used to make and play maps with my friends, I'd be following these rules! Of course I was very influenced by the design of the originals. I was obsessed with texture alignment in a way my friends weren't. They could crank out 2 or 3 maps in time I could do one because everything needed a border, everything lined up, the textures would make sense. Same with Duke3D. lol nostalgia.
It's very impressive that Romero pioneered the rules whilst Doom itself was new and nothing like it had come before. Geniuses!
There's actually three additional rules I followed:

1) Never have an essential switch that needs to be shot to activate, that can't be reached by the player to be "punched" Basically never rely on a resource that might run out to complete the map.
2) If falling into a pit, either have away of escaping, or so much damage it kills you quickly.
3) Always make sure the player can get from the start point to the end point without _requiring_ them to traverse environmental hazards eg Lava - there's a few nasty examples of this rule breaking in E3, Limbo and Mt Erebus. If you should run out of medkits and have really low health you're trapped. This also doesn't really apply to games with recharging health.

[DSDMovies]

I want to know how did Romero happen to be one of the greatest level designers right ouf ot the gate. He must have learned a few things during Wolfenstein but it's uncanny how Doom, the first FPS with levels that had realistic shapes and contours had such amazing design. Romero must have been thinking about nothing else during that period. Rule 4 about contrasts is particularly insightful.

[blueblimp]

The rules show how important exploration is to the Romero style of level design. Rules 5-8 are all about giving the level good exploration gameplay. One particular thing about Doom is the fast player speed means that you can backtrack a lot without getting bored. It's so dull to backtrack in games where you move slowly, which hurts the exploration experience.