What you’ll find here are just a bunch of videos, books, and articles I’ve stumbled upon over the years, that I have personally found useful in helping me become a better Level Designer; and I hope you find them as useful as well!
Level Design Resources
Websites
Level Design Compendium
I discovered the Level Design Compendium several years ago, and its been a constant resource ever since. Vicente Andrés Quesada Mora the creator of the compendium has done an amazing service for all Level Designers, sharing it and continuing to add to it. It’d be a shame not to utilize it.
The board offers several lists that range from theory and workflow to LD portfolios and editor tutorials. Anyone from from junior to veteran is sure to find something of value from it.
The Level Design Book
Have not yet had the chance to really delve into it but from surface level, this seems like an absolute gold mine of a resource.
Right from the get-go it starts off with “How to build a level” and goes into in depth detail of the various phases and aspects of Level Design and resources related to each topic.
It also offers plenty of reference reading materials and ends up being a one stop shop for information much like the Level Design Compendium.
80 Level
80 level is a mish mash of great articles, interviews, job postings and marketplace assets all in the name of connecting talented individuals and companies alike.
I mostly know this site from a few great articles its posted about design which I’ll be posting below, but seems to be a great resource for learning and game news.
World of Level Design
The World of Level Design has been a long-standing resource for designers since 2008. The amassed collection of resources ranging from tutorials for editors and workflows, to a plethora of articles that can only make anyone a better designer, makes this another must for juniors and veterans alike.
Articles
Defining Level Language
“Level Designer Emilia Schatz outlined the core principles, which help to make your environments playable and understandable to the player.”
This is a fantastic article that covers many of the considerations Level Designers must take in order to make their levels readable at a glance for players. It covers core topics such as metrics, shape language, affordances and much more.
Clever Level Design: More than Meets the Eye
“In this interview Pete Ellis gives some very nice hints as to environment design, shows examples of virtual world as a story medium usage and explains how you can teach user to play through clever levels.”
Another great article that covers in game examples of how designers can tell stories through their level design (in world story telling) to great effect; enhancing how the player experiences the world learning more about it through live play.
Level Design Cover 101 - Placement & Mindset
A great article and video that discusses mind set and practice of cover placement in level design, and how players and AI can potentially interact with it.
This article / video goes into some simple but in depth examples of how placement and positioning (scale and angle) can drastically change how a space can be engaged with.