I want to start learning Level Design, so what are the main topics I have to learn about specifically? since I learn on my own, so I don't want to drop something that could be important, and if there are some suggested books or courses to start from.
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Learning Level Design
Just start making levels. For the beginning, choose a game with a level editor. Experiment, try to make a competent levelset. Practice makes perfect.
If you don't have any idea for what game to make levels for, let me know what sort of games you like and chances are I can point you to something.
This is not a whole course on level design but it's a nice start.
this channel has a lot of good content, that has help me a ton with making my first game.
7 hours ago, JulieMaru-chan said:choose a game with a level editor.
what games that have level editor you would suggest, since i just need a start more than choosing a specific type of games to work with
57 minutes ago, kane david said:what games that have level editor you would suggest, since i just need a start more than choosing a specific type of games to work with
mario maker, happy wheels
even little big planet works
16 hours ago, kane david said:I want to start learning Level Design, so what are the main topics I have to learn about specifically?
You should take Psychology 101, Architecture 101, Art 101, Geology 101, and Programming 101. And read this.
If you don't have a particular type of game in mind, I'll just list off a few I think are good (they're all free and pretty easy to use):
- Scavenger: https://sourceforge.net/projects/sdlscavenger/
- KGoldrunner: https://games.kde.org/game.php?game=kgoldrunner
- SuperTux*: https://supertux.org
- Alex the Allegator 4: http://allegator.sourceforge.net/
* I haven't tried the current version's level editor, but the 0.1.3 editor was good, so I assume the current one must be too.
In art there is a concept called unity that refers to the composition of a piece. It basically refers to the balance of the whole image. Not just color affects it but the sizes of forms and their frequency. Basically, the idea is that balance can be done with more than a single aspect of the design but if there is no overall balance then it feels wrong. The difficult and never-quite-reachable goal of level design is to have unity from wherever the camera might be at any time. Obviously it's a tall order but focusing on the focal points of the map can help as well as positioning things to form a balance in not just appearance but also gameplay mechanics.