Ten Principles for Good Level Design

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Dan Taylor provides a Ramsian-style breakdown of how to create world-class levels, which distills the art and science of level design down to a concentrated set of fundamental principles for innovation, engagement, and immersion.

Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNEe3KhMvXM


Quick guide breakdown:

  • Good level design is fun to navigate but throw in some chaos.
  • Does not reply on words to tell a story.
  • Tells the player what to do, but not how to do it by giving clear objectives.
  • Good level design constantly teachers the player something new with new mechanics
  • Surprise players by taking risks and changing aesthetics or pacing.
  • Embrace the escapism and empower the player.
  • Use risk reward so players can choose there own difficulty dynamically.
  • Design of non linearity, bidirectionalarity, modularity and efficiency.
  • Work backwards to create an emotion response using level mechanics
  • Level design is driven by mechanics.
These are not weighted in priority, each project will require some adjustments and reordering. 
 










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