Initial ideas

How to begin a level? Every level begins with some idea. Overall, the clear an idea is, the better it is. Ideas that are too grandiose or too open, with no clear direction, are not good places to start. Conversely, the more confusing, cloudy, an idea is, the worse it is. For example: suppose a level that is going to be a castle. The first question to ask it: What castle is it? There are many types of castles. Watch a documentary about castles. They are probably going to talk about the decision that lead to the construction of it and other decisions such as size and quantity of windows and their geographic orientation. There were also decisions made to choose the building's materials, the location and height. The same questions arise in level design, however there are different matters to deal with. For starters, in level design never think about costs with materials, air flow, acoustics or emergency exits. In a game your concerns are aligned with lighting, the space for the player to move around, the weapons, the mechanics, the placement of enemies and obstacles, etc.

This site discusses many different aspects of level design, one of the most important being to properly guide the player through an environment. Good level design means clear boundaries, the player has a clear view of where they are supposed to go and which parts are supposed to be inaccessible. We could extrapolate that to goals in a person's life if we are talking about paths in life. Why not apply that to level design itself? Let's take level design to meta. The level design process has to have a clear beginning, middle and ending. In the same way a player gets confused by confusing level design, an unclear idea results in a confusing level. A good level is the result of a clear idea and a clear path. Let's think about a level that is going to be a castle, up to this point it's nothing more than an idea. Where is the level's starting point? Which areas are we going to have? Where is the level's ending? Without knowing the answers to those questions the level is left with no direction.

A good starting point and let's stress out that it's not the only way to go, is to answer the questions: What is the level going to be? A castle? Which type of castle? Large? Small? Is the level going to take place exclusively inside the castle? Are there going to be external areas? A big mistake that beginners tend to make is to skip that step and go straight into building with no details in mind. So we have the idea of building a castle. Let's randomly choose a castle from the web. From there I imagine that the castle is going to have high ceiling, stone walls, spiral stairs, towers, narrow or wide corridors, etc. Yes, we have some ideas but it's still too vague. We can't go on building from vague ideas.

Can the player jump very high? Can they climb walls? Is there going to be an explosion that destroys a stair for instance? All that have to be planned before building the level. Architects and/or engineers have concerns that must be solved before any construction begins. Escape routes, fire, flooding, safety or even terrorist attacks. There are certain concerns that cannot be left for later. Suppose that we have a large space designed for up to 5 thousand people. The exit is a narrow space that doesn't allow many people to pass at the same time. That's the recipe for a tragedy and many tragedies around the world happened because of such mistakes. Going back to level design, players won't lose their lives, but the gameplay may suffer from those types of mistakes. If there is a room filled with hundreds of soldiers and they are supposed to quickly get out and ambush the player, there must be ways for the soldiers to quickly get out. Else, the expected scripted event is not going to work as intended (addendum: in the game world we can teleport characters outside the player's view and many many games do that and they often face some design challenges caused by extra large resolutions and screens). Having a list of goals or objectives is a good tool to take advantage of.

Where does the level start? Is it underground? Is it at the main entrance? Is the player going to jump from an air-plane and land on the roof? Once inside, what is the player going to do? Where to go? Are the any objectives that the player has to complete such as assassinating a character, rescue a hostage or plant a bomb? Does the castle have a piano room? Is there a library? Are there bedrooms? How many of them? Are there towers with spiral stairs? Is there a kitchen? More than one kitchen? Are there cellars? A prison? Is the player supposed to complete objectives in a certain order or in any order? If the objectives don't require a certain order, are the paths within the castle designed with that in mind? After all those questions, where is the player going to go in the end? How does it all end?

If the level is made for "Free For All" or "Capture The Flag", the creative process is the same. Is the level designed for two, four or 50 players? Is it for two teams? How many paths between each base? Is it desired that the player is rendered vulnerable to snipers? Are there combat cars, war tanks? If the castle was made for "CTF", are there going to be spots to take cover? Is there going to be a room with pillars for players to take cover? Are the players going to play both inside and outside the castle? Are there going to be trees outside? Is there a river? Is it winter or summer? A clear list of goals or objectives has to be made to heave a clear view before beginning a level.