Day 10 and I finally did it. I finished the complete level design work for Knight of Armodol in 10 days. During this time, I had to make many changes from the original handdrawn map naturally after playtesting it and just being at the level. Knight of the Armodol is an action rpg game that takes inspiration from games like the Zelda Series, Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series (1983-1985), Dark Souls Series, Skyrim, Elden Ring, Ghost of Tsushima and Gothic.
Things that I learned during this process:
- Do not get hung up on spending too much time making things look nice for the blockout, but don’t slack off making Level Design because you are making the backbone for everything for teams to work on.
- Use text, colors, proper names, folder management to communicate with other teams. This will help anyone from the team to change things without having to hound you for questions when you aren’t around or busy with other projects.
- Don’t try to do everything on your own to make the level playable like a finished game. There will be teams that are as passionate as you are for them to do what they do best.
- Take blockout seriously and playtest it multiple times before moving to the next one.
- Prepare to destroy the blockout if necessary when the game level design is asking for something else.
- Be open-minded and flexible.
- Frustration, mistakes and time crunch are friends, not enemies, to make cool level designs. Trust the process and keep at it.
- Do not take feedback from others unless they have play-tested the Level Design or have spent time on the project.
- Never lose your passion after failing a project.
- Always have an open mind to learn something new to make interesting level design.
- Create a level design that makes you feel passionate and excited. Players are not idiots, and they can feel it if someone pours their heart into the game or not.
- Remember to feel during level design. This helps to create interesting things out of simple ideas.
