When beginning to design a level, what are your suggestions for steps to take (Analysis, Conception, Diagram, Greybox, Testing and Iteration, etc…). What tools are available in UEFN that would facilitate these steps?
Great Level Design supports the gameplay of the game, the cognitive mapping abilities of the player, and has pacing that keeps things interesting throughout the experience. Gameplay is at the core of any game experience and levels need to provide players the opportunities to use the skills they have mastered. If the game has fast-paced third person combat, the levels should be open enough to swing your weapon. If players needed to master timing dashes through traps, levels should incorporate this mechanic in more than one location. A well designed level also supports the cognitive mapping abilities of the player. This is the ability of a player to get a read on the space, mentally map it, and make good use of it during gameplay. This means that important paths should be clear and the space should not be cluttered or overly complex. The player should be able to eventually feel mastery over the space and get that emotional reward. Finally, the experience of the level should be paced well. As Josiah and Evan have pointed out, the player should never feel bored in your level and surprises keep the level feeling fresh. This also speaks to pacing or how pressured the player feels to keep moving through the space. You don’t want your player to be bored and linger in areas not designed for that purpose. As designers we move players through the level using combat, story elements, vistas, and even emotions to keep things moving. For example, you can give players a sense of being chased by a monster or group of spec ops soldiers without ever showing them on screen using sound and VFX. That would definitely keep me moving! Likewise, a beautiful vista will make the player pause for a moment to take in the sights, thus slowing the pacing down for a bit.
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It really depends on what type of game you’re making, but in general, one of the most important aspects of level design is “the element of surprise”. Typically, you don’t want players to get into a predictable rhythm when navigating your levels. Use focal points to foreshadow later parts of your level, periodically block their line of sight to keep them guessing, and use events to surprise and delight them. Think of level design like a magic trick: it’s great when players don’t know what’s coming next.
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My process when starting a new level begins with the design doc. I like to know about the setting, narrative beats that happen during the level, what actions the player is capable of, and what gameplay will be introduced during the level. I then start collecting reference images, lots of reference images. I look for images that help inform the setting (in real life and in other games), the architecture style, lighting, and mood. The more images the better.
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The teams I communicate most frequently with would be the art and gameplay teams. Level designers need to work closely with artists to ensure art assets support all aspects of their levels and vice versa. There are also many gameplay considerations to keep in mind when designing levels such as AI behavior so proper communication with gameplayer designers is necessary for levels to play well.
Agency and choice are important, even if the choices aren’t large they still let the player feel as though they aren’t being railroaded down one particular path. Depending on your experience, you can also create more open hubs or other areas players frequently come back to, and maybe give very minor access to areas players might explore later in your game as a way to preview them. Even if the progression of major events in the story is very linear, returning to a familiar spot gives players time to breathe, and maybe discover new things they might have missed the first time they explored the hub.
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Yes! Foundational LD skills such as understanding level flow, using affordances/denials, and having a good sense of scale apply when designing any type of virtual space. Making spaces that players can easily navigate and supports the gameplay of the game are important whether that level is the size of a Point of Interest or an open world.
Test early, test often. Sometimes changes to other parts of your game can have knock-on effects on your levels. Changes to player stats like speed or health, or changes to mechanics that add new dimensions can drastically alter the feel of your game, and that’s why it’s so important to keep it simple through gray boxing to let you easily iterate. Oftentimes it’s not really so much a hardline matter of “Does this thing work or not” and moreso “How has playtesting changed this thing and how have we changed it to fit our experience”.
There are ways you can give players agency in a linear environment. For example, you can add a fork in the road that leads to an optional destination. It doesn’t have to go far and could just lead to some resources, but letting players decide between going left or right periodically can keep your level from feeling too linear. Another strategy is having larger areas with minor points of interest to interact with. These can feel nonlinear even with a single entrance and exit because they give players choices to make while traveling to their destination. The key is to keep players engaged by having them make decisions.
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The list for this is probably too long to put here, so I’ll also have to give a broad answer. The common thread is that most of them get cut after playtesting. There are many situations where you can spend a lot of time crafting an idea, mechanic, or part of a level, only to find out during playtesting that it may not suit your game, or requires heavy rework. This doesn’t mean those ideas are bad or not worth exploring, just that they may not work for that exact experience. Sometimes having to cut things may even be a good thing, as working around limitations and having to adapt to those changes can help you find ideas you might never have explored in the first place.
Easily the original Dark Souls. The interconnectedness of that game has always stuck with me, and I’ve never had a stronger mental map or sense of geography in any game. The world of Lordran had so much care put into its design, and everything from the placement of enemies, the awe-inspiring views, and the call of the unknown encouraged you to explore it. Looking down from the Undead Parish and seeing the Darkroot Forest and Blightown a mile below and realizing “I can go there, from here, with no loading all in one journey” blew me away, and even years later the mental paths from place to place are still in my head. The variety in areas also evoked a wide range of feelings, from awe at the splendor of Anor Londo to the terror at the Tomb of the Giants, all while maintaining that classic Dark Souls feeling of struggle. Issues with the game mechanics interacted with the world (awkward jumping, weird rolling) aside, each element of level design came together to create a game that was truly memorable to me.
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My favorite thing to see is the intersection between environment, art, and level. When all those aspects combine to make a level feel like a real place I could explore, rather than a series of rooms or disconnected setpieces. A good environment communicates a real sense of “being” in the world and makes me want to explore every nook and cranny just to see the detail the designer put into it. That and side paths. Having multiple directions to explore, or multiple routes to an objective really makes me feel like I have a choice in how I want to approach the level.
This is an excellent question and one that may differ in opinion depending on who you talk to. For me, function needs to come before fun though that is not to say that fun isn’t important. A Level Design sets out from the beginning to meet certain goals (deliver an experience, teach gameplay, hit narrative beats, and so on) and if you are hitting those goals then the fun should be there, especially when we are talking about gameplay. However, there are ways to meet your goals that are more fun than others. Some gameplay puzzles are more fun than others. Combat and traversing the level shouldn’t be frustrating. Pacing of the level should give the player breaks in between tense or serious moments. And I think that these things all together are what will make the level fun.
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Variety is the spice of life, and good level design should keep levels feeling fresh even when working with very simple mechanics. Iterations on the core gameplay keep your levels from feeling too same-y, and constantly looking for opportunities to create new experiences for your players can often lead to really inspired designs. Maybe this area is vertical instead of horizontal, maybe players have a heavy restriction placed on them or a major obstacle to navigate, maybe players are fighting over a finite resource to gain some major advantage, etc. Although the types of variations you can apply depend on your type of game, the core idea of creating distinct areas of experience applies whether your game has multiple levels or just a single map.
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We have a channel in the Fortnite Creative and UEFN Discord server where you can request playtesters for your island. If you have specific needs, you can request them in your post. Discord
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This is a great example of why grayboxing is so important. After designing out the basics of the map on paper and collecting your references (again, as much as you can). the next step is to graybox out your level using basic shapes. Each shape you place in the level represents the actual collision footprint of an asset that is created later and the end result is a copy of the game space. The graybox level can then be used for gameplay programming and testing. Test early, test often! This way, any issues can be smoothed out as early in the process as possible. This step becomes more important the larger your team is since the graybox level is your way as a level designer to communicate with other teams such as Art, Gameplay, and Programming.
Should we be thinking about devices and their capabilities during level design? Is it worth pre-planning how level actors will interact with each other and then fitting designs around them?
Though I can’t really think of any one thing from any of my projects, there will always be things that are cut for various reasons. When people say “Kill your darlings” this is exactly what they mean. Sometimes it will be time. Sometimes it will be because it didn’t work well with players. Sometimes it will even be because a better idea came along! Never be afraid to cut an idea if it isn’t working, just write it down and save it for another level.
That is such a great question. If we can time travel? Half Life. The original Half Life is the game that got me into design, specifically the level where Gordon Freeman escaping through the tunnels and gets ambushed by the spec ops teams. The designers were able to achieve a feeling of desperation and being hunted with very few tools. If we are talking about something still in active development it would be Dead Space! I am a huge fan of the series, both the original version and the remake. Especially the more survival horror vibe of the first game. The designers had to work with the fact that Isaac Clark couldn’t jump and even his run was intentionally slow. They then worked closely with Environment Artists and Sound Designers to create such an intense environment that really supported the gameplay well.
Level design is driven by the desire to create a specific experience, support gameplay, and support the player’s use of the space. Based on that, I think the answer really depends on the project. Environment can be dictated by the narrative of that level of the game, such as which planet you’re on in a sci fi game. Environment can also be an important part of gameplay, such as when using mantling, wallrunning, gliding, or other transversal mechanics. In these ways, Environment is definitely a factor in my design decisions. However, art can be changed to fit almost any setting and this happens sometimes in game production (which is why we do graybox levels before investing time in art). You can design a canyon run experience with obstacles and parkour, and then adjust the art to arctic, jungle, desert, urban, or many others. It all just depends on the needs of the project.