Level Design Approaches for Solo Devs

Comments · 184

• IN

  @IndieGameClinic · 6 days ago (edited) · pinned

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• SP

  @spacebroad · 1 year ago

  &quot;make the first level last&quot; took me by surprise! Such a good idea.

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• EF

  @Efim141 · 1 year ago

  &quot;Emotional attachment so you don&apos;t wanna change it&quot; is how I end up creating new levels instead of fixing the old ones.

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• EN

  @endorb · 1 year ago

  Its so funny how many different things get trunkated to being &quot;level design&quot;. To a lot of people, the &quot;level design&quot; is basically every visual and spatial element of a game, and it&apos;s extremely daunting when that&apos;s the viewpoint. I really like this breakdown.

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• DA

  @dan-d9r5h · 1 month ago (edited)

  Here&apos;s what I found helpful when I made my first game (parkour)<br>1. start with the essentials (greybox design with two walls, some ledge grabs, handhelds to climb up, and a balance beam)<br>2. build several gameplay loops with your essentials (build a wall with multiple ways to traverse it in all directions. Up &gt; down &gt; up &gt; left &gt; right etc.)<br>3. establish rules and limits with your essentials (all handhelds climbs terminate at a ledge, running off a ledge point leaps towards another ledge)<br>4. build a playground with your gameplay loops (put 4 walls together and call them buildings, and place them next to each other)<br>5. give yourself an objective within this environment (try to get from A to B with different rules each time)<br><br>now evaluate whether it&apos;s fun. Have someone play test it and get feedback on whether it&apos;s fun and intuitive, or frustrating. Make adjustments until the system feels natural <br><br>The idea is that designing your level and picking an art direction is something you do last. You need to first establish what your game needs and that will tell you a lot about what direction your art should go<br><br>For example, my prototype was the most fun when walls had a lot of handhelds and ledges. I decided to make my buildings with brick, lots of windows, air conditioning units, and balconies, so I themed it around suburban life and I liked it so I stuck with it. I went in with the idea of building a post-apocalyptic story adventure (similar to I am alive) and instead building a parkour delivery time trial game

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• MC

  @mclennaninteractive · 4 months ago

  &quot;developers that don&apos;t have a producer or manager breathing down their neck&quot;<br><br>My producer, Scott, is the GOAT. He pushes me to accomplish way more than I ever thought I could do as a solo developer.

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• MI

  @miketheburns · 8 months ago

  &quot;one day you&apos;ll make something good. &nbsp;maybe&quot;<br>just the encouragement I needed to hear today!

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• MA

  @majestichotdog1195 · 1 year ago

  first video i could find that wasnt misunderstanding the term Level design. thank you

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• HU

  @Human-b5x · 1 year ago

  That was actually good advice.<br>I really dislike when people try to spoon feed you what to do. And make it seems that &quot;best practices&quot; is the only way of doing things.

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• MR

  @MrJohnabrown · 10 months ago

  Love how you packed in so much valuable info and included others’ resources. Really helps the understanding of the topic!

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• MY

  @mykeyboardismelting6856 · 4 months ago

  im not actually an indie dev, just someone who sweats mario maker, but this kind of advice seems really good so far. i def gotta check out this steve lee guy and the rest of the sphere because level design is already looking super fun

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• IJ

  @IJH-Music · 1 year ago

  While you&apos;re learning, You <b>DON&apos;T</b> do everything yourself.<br><br>Find FREE Assets, and focus on learning the fun parts 80% of the time.<br>If it&apos;s fun, you will LEARN Faster (:

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