How to NOT Fail at Level Design

I deep dived the many aspects of level design for this video.

Started looking at speed build in unreal engine and environment design portfolios.

What is Level design vs Environment Design?

As an indie dev these two things are intertwined and you will be doing both all the time, and sometimes at the same time. But they have their own pipelines.

A Level designer makes the initial draft and the block out for the level which focuses on the flow of the game, which is how good it feels to traverse the map.

They double check Player Scale, in terms of how your character measures to the world around it. For example, Is your character small like Remi in ratatouille? is he able to walk all over the kitchen appliances and furniture to the point where these feel like mountains.

Or is the player a giant a giant Kaiju like in rampage? (which is a bad example since most of those characters are stylized and the buildings are smaller to make everything feel more arcadey and fast paced).

Level designers also add interactivity to platforms that move around in the level or doors that need specific items or actions to be unlocked. Later in the process they oversee the playtesting to balance encounters or mechanics.

An Environmental Artist on the other hand

Focuses on Making the level blocking that was play tested look like the actual concept art. They use modular 3D assets, kit bash packs, free Flipped Assets online, or they make their own 3d Models with blender or other tools.

In the end their job is to make everything look polished and make sure everything looks good visually. They also have the benefit of enhancing the lore using environmental story telling.

Both of these designers make levels come to life.