The Ultimate Guide on How to Design Video Game Levels

Developing a video game is an enthralling, exciting, and challenging task that requires knowledge and expertise. Developers creating a video game focuses on delivering exceptional video game levels. The video game level is the stage that is involved in a video game to complete the task. Levels in video games are usually progressive in difficulty to appeal to players of various skill levels. The developers must create a video game that keeps the audience hooked and engaged with the game.

Create challenging levels that interest the user and boost their excitement level. Many video games are available on the play store, but only a few of them are popular among the audience that’s because only a few games are created by using the correct techniques and game levels. Many video games such as Deathloop, super Mario 3D world, halo infinite, Forza horizon, Fortnite, etc. are popular video game that has created great hype among game enthusiasts.

The ultimate guide on how to design a video game level

The following are the game design level that helps you in creating a great video game.

Know the limitations

The first and foremost step in the video game level is to know the limitations and constraints. Decide for what platform you are creating the game level as each platform has a different and unique level of game design. Consider the level length of your video game and decide whether it’s a trending mobile games or a console game. Mobile gamers spend a shorter time per level as compared to console gamers.

Think and research about your target audience to create a better game level. Demographics help in identifying the gender, age, education, status, background, etc. about your target audience. Know about their interest and then plan to create a design level accordingly. For example, if you’re targeting the younger age group, then add bright colors to your game-level design. While grin shading could be a better option for the adult age group.

Level design tools

Introducing a new kind of weapon, a new enemy, or adding new power or ability, all are examples of game-level design tools. You can utilize them to keep the gamers involved by challenging them. Consider the character’s personality. What should the speed be? What kind of jump will it make? What about the protagonist’s adversaries? Have you considered how they will appear? These are all design decisions that go into making your game.

Build phase

You can switch to the next level, as now you have the overall version of the game. Now think about the environment of the game and decide at what place will the game happen? In the street? Or in the park? Or maybe in the old town? Once you decide the location, you can move towards dividing the levels into different sections. It will appear like an outline of the game. It is advisable to demonstrate the game levels with numbers to grasp the progression. Define the movements of character by drawing arrows between sections of a degree. Test it yourself as you are the audience and make amendments until you believe that it is brilliant. 

Understand constraints

Each level in the game design starts with understanding constraints. Now, what are constraints? Constraints are a set of rules that are applied throughout a game mode that enables or restricts play in certain ways. Constraints are often an astounding way to generate distinctive ideas and push beyond boundaries. Through constraints, players get to know the boundaries of the game world.

If you are working with a large group of teams, then each constraint will come from different members. Franchise constraints, legal constraints, audience constraints, business constraints, etc. are included in the constraints. However, if you are not a member of any group, then you need to create make all decisions about the restrictions on your own.

The first constraint is to think about the game duration and know how long a particular level will take to finish? A low level should not be more than 30 minutes. Next, you need to decide how much time it takes to design that level. Therefore, understanding constraints play a vital role in the video design game.

Brainstorming  

Once you have a clear perspective on all the restrictions, the next step is to start the brainstorming session. The brainstorming session includes the ideas that every team member shares among the team for designing the video game with engaging and unique features. It’s important to focus on different areas within the same level to design video game levels. It will make the design process more manageable as the work is broken down into small manageable chunks. Add some basic ideas and restrictions to each level.

Bubble diagrams

Before finalizing the design process, it’s essential to take a look at the overall flow to avoid errors. A bubble diagram is a visual representation in which information is represented in the form of a series of bubbles. This type of diagram will help you to understand how the areas of the mobile design will work. The fields in your game level design are represented by the circle in the bubble diagram, and the arrows between them show the relationship between these places.

 You will get many parts of the level from the brainstorming phase. The main idea of the Bubble diagram is to join these parts and see how they relate to each other. 

 Rough maps

After creating the bubble diagram, the next phase is to create the first design for each bubble in the diagram. The design of each bubble diagram is put together in Adobe Illustrator to connect all the areas in physical space. The designer joints or connects each level with the other one to complete the design. After that we have matched all the physical areas with the help of the illustrator, we now have a clear perspective regarding the design game level.

Final words

Designing and developing video game levels is rapidly evolving in the mobile gaming industry. Developers are escalating their horizons by bringing new ideas and innovation to video game levels. The mobile game developer must follow the guidelines of creating the video game levels that will help in keeping the gamers engaged with the video game. These are not just the stages of game-level design, but also the key to creating a lucrative video mobile game. Moreover, utilizing the latest game technology, tool, framework, and technique will assist you in creating a top-notch video mobile game.