My Level Design Philosophy + Tips For Designing Levels
Вставка
- Опубліковано 24 лис 2017
- Designing levels and level design philosophy can be complicated...but I share my top tips for creating indie game levels in this video.
67 Tips for Game Developers: gdu.io/insiders?ref=yt
Serious about success in game development? Wanna make indie games that ROCK?! Join Underground ELITE:
/ gamedevunderground
** FOLLOW ME: **
Twitter: / timruswick
** FOLLOW GDU: **
Blog: gdu.io/blog/
Twitter: / gamedevudg
Facebook: / gamedevudg
Discord: / discord
If you are an indie developer and you are looking for a fantastic community and help to refine, manage, and market your game, join us!
gdu.io
One thing that can work well, write the mechanics you have in your game in one list, then the obstacles in another, now pick randomly from both lists. "Jumping" "Lava". Or "Shooting" "Spikes". Or "Bouncing" "Falling platforms".
You get the idea. Sometimes the combination is a bit rubbish, but in the act of trying to make it work you might come up with a new level design concept that does work. The idea is to avoid the blank canvas syndrome where you can make *anything* you want.
By having some weird combinations, and to some extent forcing yourself to make a level about it, you wind up with more creative levels.
You could also try grabbing verbs and nouns from a dictionary at random, but unless your making a very random game (or are brainstorming for a new game) that's probably too wide a selection. "Cook" "Zebra crossing" - good luck with that one.
MrSylfa That’s really sound advice! I’ve never heard of that method before; I’m going to have to try it out.
Thanks!!
MrSylfa for a car game that could be a populated zebra-crossing area with lots of pedestrians and maybe restaurants or a food festival 😉😂
Thanks for the tip though! Super super helpful :)
Overcooked level 1-2 literally takes place on a zebra crossing, where you have to cook amidst passing pedestrians... :)
Holy heck thank you for that, that was exactly what I needed to do!
To be honest I can't express how happy I am of having read your comment. Your idea is absolutely amazing. I was in a king of distress because I din't have too much creativity in making my game, but now, with this method, a lot of good, innovating and interesting ideas come up.
Thank you for don't keeping this up for yourself.
That game looks freaking awesome! I really love the shadow effect.
tbh, this shadow effect canbe a really cool idea to design an entire level, remind me of Rayman Legends with his crazy 8 bits level.
This is very eye-opening. I always believed that you decide the theme of a level after you design it; that limiting yourself to a theme might inhibit your design process.
I'm now learning more how personality and theme are the driving forces behind memorable games.
Great video, and definitely something I did on my game as well. Naming the level gives the level a "theme" and a purpose aside from just "make it to the end and don't screw up". Even if those names aren't displayed in the game (though they should be if at all possible), having those themes in mind when designing a level can go a long way to add character to your game.
This is gold. Naming levels is something designers think can usually wait till the end but you've pretty much convinced me that that's not always the case.
I've just heard from a wonderful video that you should start with a goal, and using a name for a level is pretty genius. Honestly, this is such an underrated video and more starting designers should see this.
If you need any audio/music for your games let me know. I'm trying to build up experience doing audio for games. :) and anyone watching who wants an audio guy to help, feel free to message me.
Donny Clark cool. I will let you know when i get a feel for direction on my game
I'd suggest uploading some music snippets on your channel, from my point of view; I know nothing about you, you might be brilliant at it, or you might be someone who just learned basic music theory and just think your brilliant at it.
Some promotion on your channel would go a long way to fix that
Yeah I plan to add stuff to my channel soon :)
TheSomeoneXD Swordlands composition is fairly simple, the sections end on imperfect cadences, meaning the last chord builds the tension leading into the next phase. Obviously the production is the harder part, getting good quality orchestral samples is difficult. I'm not on the GDU discord yet, I'll check it out now though
I will like if you know music with unity 2017.2
This is interesting. As an architecture student, I can say that the way you designed break is how we design buildings. We choose a concept, and everything down to the doorknob must comply to the word. Even when we start our presentation we must say hello my name is ... and my concept this ... and many times, this is basically enough to explain the majority of the entire building system (if done correctly which is kinda impossible for student level projects tho) it was an eye opener to see that this design method really translates to game design as well.
I love this video ... im just learning level design for my studio thanks for posting this video, and thank you once again for the description below giving links for us explore! Tim!
Many thanks for the tip, Tim!
I've been watching your videos for a while already, and taking actions suggested by you. This video was the most useful for me.
When I've got to the point that I need to design some levels for my first game I was completely lost, I've never designed a level before and didn't know where to start. Hearing your advise was like turning the light on... Hey, naming a level sounds so simple, this is why it's genius.
Thank you so much again, you've saved me a lot of headache!
Thanks man I couldn't appreciate this video more. You helped me out exponentially!
Your videos are helping me so much. Its insane. Thank you for the advice and the perspectives. Keep it up.
Loved the video, game looks awesome, I cant wait to try out this philosophy when I start working on my next game, thanks for the ideas and inspiration :)
your name, underground, inspired me lol, I can have a part where the character falls out the map, and go underground as a sudden transition
With my ideas the theme is informed by the name. For instance, Basement Dwellers would be set in basement, Sewer Side would be set in a sewer etc.
Really good points here, thanks Tim!
gotta say Philophobia looks really cool :)
This is simple and super helpful. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for this, find level design very tough do always nice to hear how other people do it.
Some genuinely great tips thank you
Amazing video! Watched it twice in a row ! Thank you
Great Idea. I always differentiated my levels by creating unique mechanics and unique ways of accomplishing goals.I'd probably stick to that because it's really fun to do, but this concept looks like a great way to add more flavor and variety to my levels..
Thank you for the great advice! I'm gonna keep it in mind.
Nice video, one thing i have learned from designing leves is creating an "identity" for each level or groups of leves, like in Super Mario or Sonic.
It's more easy for the player to identify what's goes in the game.
Interesting advice! It definitely helps to make your levels stand out from each other, in any game I think.
really great stuff. loved the advice. thx
Actually pretty good philosophy for any abstract designs. Thank you for share.
I'm just starting out with game development and this is great advice for me! One example of this that comes to mind immediately is "Rainbow Road" from Mario Kart. I will for sure try this in my own work.
It is a really easy tip from you that i didn`t thought about and i wanted to say thanks, because 1) The Name and 2) The Describing is indeed helpful.
So thanks, you helped me out :]
Thank you man I was just making a new platformer my very first one id say and I was stuck on how should I make the first level and I think you helped me think what I should do or go for
Nice, I think this is a really interesting idea, thanks for the tip
This is so helpful. Thank you!
Great video, straight to the point. Invaluable advice.
😁😅
I try to give each level a purpose starting with listing the core mechanics that my player needs to learn and space those out over some levels. In between those 'learning levels' I can do different stuff : learn nuance of a mechanic to a player, play with momentum (slow levels/fast levels) to break up the pacing, play with emotions as well, change up the visibility by changing the ligthing options, ... Anything goes really, as long as you know the purpose of a level and its place among the other levels stuff tends to work out imo.
would be more interesting if you could place obstacles that cast shadow you can move on. The mechanic seems suited to a puzzle but it looks like it would get on my nerves in an action game.
OMG, that game he was playing was really cool. i just loved it
Makes sense. Placing a label on it automatically limits the scope. Not to mention our brain likes labels.
Ahh! Naming levels.
That reminds me of the great "Manic Miner" ... maybe I'm getting too old. :)
Love this video. Helps me alot
Thanks, so simple but so useful.😀
I use this Tip:
I always build my Levels with Prototyping Materials (so I didn't made any Art Assets).
I alwaysy use Basic Single-Colored Shapes to build my Games (the Colors shouldn't be Themed around the Level Theme (for example I always use the same Yellow and Pink, you can for example always use my Colors, too, or always Black and White, or whatwever Color Combination you like), because the Theming should come up over Time in Development of the Level, because then the Theming fits then better to the Levels Mechanics and the Level feels, as a Result, more Organic than, if you would do the Theming before the Level)
This Type of Prototyping works not only for Individual Levels, but also whole Game Concepts.
For Example, you can always use a Cube as your Prototype Character, and then you come up with a way better Character Design then if you would do the Character Design before the Moveset
A really helpfull video! Thanks a lot!
I don`t have a single word or number in my game (intended), but I`ll use the idea of naming a level (in my head) before it is made. Thanks!
One question: Did you break the "form follows function" principle on purpose? The heart enemies do not telegraph their danger by their visual. Wouldn't a corrupted or a spiky heart work better?
Great Video I'm gonna be in the level design proces soon myself , so I have a question. If a level has any dort of gimmick, is it possible to overuse said gimmick as a sub for making the level feel unique to the others? If so how do you adjust the design for that?
Great tips ty
Top! Gonna try this... Would love to share some of my initial named designs. :)
How do I make the shadow looks like that? Any tutorial? I wanna add that effect to my university project that I'm working on.
Thank you!
Im so glad i decided to put the pen and paper down and look up proper level design. I was about to make some generic a$$ levels
pretty good idea, but would work for small games only, since big levels in big games has to be more complicated than just a meaning/feeling of 1 word. But for shorter levels it's a very good idea
Interesting. My approach to level design has always been to think about the mechanics first and how they can be utilized in interesting ways, then I try to build the layout in a way that best demonstrates that interesting finding. The name kind of comes after and is based upon the theme that I am trying to convey. Your approach seems to be kind of the opposite to mine.
For my use in counter strike level design this is a bit vague but still i find value in the concept you expose, i think it's really important to narrow down the theme but beyond the theme of the map generally, it helps to make each area and room its own unique interests that make for recognizable art style, quick and easy callout names, and understanding how the timings will play into the names during gameplay can really make or break a map. i remember having a lot of fun on de_bazaar, but people had generally a bad experience of it because it's really hard to recognize callouts if at all, and exactly when teammates who died would give callouts is when sound matters for the mates still alive, so it becomes a mess to callout enemies right when your mates need to focus on hearing the game sounds not voice chat... otherwise it was a pretty great map with great rotation loops and good timings but the lack of recognizable theme per section did the map a disservice. on the other hand, dust 2 that has almost same design in essense has very unique themes for each area which makes callouts clean and concise. short, long, tunnel, ct, t, a, b, mid doors, long doors. and the landmarks that give the areas their names are spaced enough that you get time to comfortably call things out when spotted.
12 thousand subs 0_0 omg congrats
this.. helps... a lot
Make part 2 pls!!!!
Just a thought but maybe you could make the heart a particle effect. I know this is an old video but could be an idea if you do any more versions of your game.
I actually ended up adding heart particles to the lava and the jump!! The game is now available on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/1035950/Philophobia_The_Fear_of_Love/
What is that level building software you are using?
Best tip ever, Thanks
great vid
There's nothing wrong with naming games where this idea came from. Thomas Was Alone comes to mind.
Credit where credit is due :)
Damn, the shadows are so good illusions too. The game looks like its 3d
Where I could play your game?
Thank you
Glad it helped!
:) you are really my hero during my game development journey
Imagine if you were a painter, and you started all your paintings with NO IDEA what you were going to paint... That's what we can do with level design.
Okay, first time viewer. Your platform game is cool. Is that a lighting effect or a 3D effect?
Omg I’m in love with you! You so fucking good talented!! God bless you ❤️ I wish I could be just a 10 percent talented like you! Greetings from Russia 🇷🇺
Him: I made the level after the name
Me: *the tf am I going to make a level after the name "groovy grove"*
A spinning disc (record) for the floor with a record needle obstacle 'spinning' around the character.
in what language did u make this game?
Its called Construct 2
Thumbs UP for not using annoying fucking music while you talk
666 views 66 likes 6k subs.
All I have to say is "Lol"
Awesome idea! I'm gonna give this way of designing a go :)