The level design process
As we already know from the opening paragraphs, level design can span a variety of tasks, from defining enemy spawn patterns to creating puzzles, sculpting, and populating an environment or even defining beat-maps in music games. Nevertheless, there are some processes and steps that can be applied to almost any content creation task, be it in part or as a whole. These steps are as follows:
- The premise: Setting up a high-level vision
- The sketch: Expanding upon the design
- Grayboxing: Implementing and iterating on gameplay
- Art implementing: Dressing up your creation
- Final polish: Bug fixing and final adjustments before release
Let's go through all of them in detail and explore some examples!
The premise
Think of the premise as a succinct but persuasive sales pitch, even if the only person you're selling an idea to is yourself. Usually, all you need is a short paragraph that highlights the purpose (from the designer's point of view) and potentially the value (in the player's...
