Here you’ll find videos, books, and articles I’ve stumbled upon over the years that I’ve personally found helpful in becoming a better Level Designer. I hope you find them just as useful!
Level Design Resources
The Art of Game Design - A book of Lenses,
Jesse Schell
At the time of writing this (Dec 26th, 2023) I’ve read about half of The Art of Game Design A Book of Lenses, and it’s been a great read thus far.
On a very high level It discusses all aspects of Game Design and development and provides you with fundamental insights and questions that you can carry with you no matter how long you’ve been in the industry.
The biggest value I’ve found is the ‘lenses’ it provides you, which are framed questions that you can ask about yourself or your content. These lenses are extremely powerful and can provide insight and understanding to what you’re making and where to go next.
These lenses are something I have already started incorporating into my processes as a sort of mental check list. As I work through problems or think about my designs, they help me make sure I’m solving the right problems and thinking about them from the right points of view.
Here you can find this great read and they’ve even uploaded all the lenses for easy access!
Here are some of the lenses that I have found helpful to keep in mind when doing Level Design
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School,
Mathew Frederick
This was one of the first books that was recommended to me when I first started at Bioware and I’m glad I picked it up. It’s an easy read with an obscene amount of digestible information and I think every Level Designer should have this in their arsenal.
101 Things I learned in Architecture school is filled with bite size concepts and basic principles of architecture that one could easily implement in their level blockouts. Concepts such as “We move through negative spaces and dwell on positive spaces” and what that means with human behavior.
Another one I like and can quite quickly be applied to Level design “Our experience of an architectural space is strongly influenced by how we arrive in it”. Think about the beginning to BIOSHOCK and how we arrive in Rapture. Those moments set the tone of the adventure you’re about to embark on.
Let’s Design COMBAT,
Max Pears
If you’re a fan of Max Pears’ Podcast Level Design Lobby you may have heard of these books of his. With information that make up the fundamentals of Combat Design paired with brilliant illustrations I found this a delightfully fun read.
The PDF book goes over many of the concepts that any Industry veteran would be familiar with and presents them in a demystifying, bite size format. Concepts like fronts, lines of sight, enemy types, flanking, Visual guidance, and many more. This is a great resource for anyone learning, or if you’re just looking to brush up on and remind yourselves of the core fundamentals that make up many of the design decisions behind combat.
Books I’m hoping to read next.
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An Archictectural Approach to Level Design
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101 Things I learned in Urban design School
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Level Design - Processes and Experiences