How can you effectively test and iterate on your level designs for maximum player enjoyment?

Level design is heavily informed by game design and narrative. It is important to keep the gameplay mechanics in mind and try to use them in refreshing ways to engage the player while also taking into account the narrative flow and the path the player is on. Good level design allows the player to feeling like they are progressing through the story without them feel like they are being funneled a certain direction whilst still allowing for plenty of exploration while also taking into account the various beats set out by production and the designer himself. Testing and iteration is key. Roleplaying is great here - pretend you are a new player. What would they first notice and how would they play the level? .

Playability is a crucial factor in game development, requiring thorough testing in a gray box. I recommend the book "Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar" for insights into creating an engaging experience. Ubisoft's tools, revealing paths favored by beta testers, informed us on optimizing player focus. Understand the game, its story, and mechanics, then build a substantial gray box for testing. Leave visual refinement to the art team and prioritize making the gameplay enjoyable for players.

Having a clear understanding of where the level fits in the overall context is foundational. What is the emotional journey of the user and what purpose does this level serve? What is the intent of the previous and next level, or possible levels in a non-linear game? What mechanics were just introduced, is this introducing, and will be introduced next? Additionally, tying your design decisions to these goals will help test, refine, and protect your designs later. For example, "the protagonist is emotionally vulnerable, so I'm going to use enemy X and challenges Y and Z to align the user's emotional state." You can update this later, but as you move forward, you can test against this and ensure that changes do not disrupt your intent.

Start by defining the big picture. What’s the experience players should have when playing your levels? What will they learn? Which actions will they perform? What is the role of each level in the game's narrative? What are the players' goals in each level? There are many great level design techniques out there, but what matters most is having a clear idea of the level's role in terms of mechanics and game aesthetics. Also, critical aspects such as difficulty ramping, themes, and balance of the level depend on the game genre and your target audience. Once the macro structure of the game’s level design is defined, that's the time to start thinking about levels content. Defining all these characteristics will aid you to create great levels.

FAIL FASTER, don't spend too much time creating the best level on your first try, and don't get attached to your creation. Ideas are cheap and implementation is key. Your first iteration will never be correctly implemented without peer feedback, so don't get attached to it or you will be setting yourself up for disappointment and conflict.

Prototyping can be the way. Sometimes. The lower-detail, higher-yield your type of content is... The lesser it pays up working with a prototype. Prototypes can mislead you, especially when it comes to finer tuning or finer details. What works on 100 objects/level a certain way might work an entirely different way on 4000 objects/level. While there are first implementations that prove to be successful, keeping an open mind and a versatile first interaction can be a time saver and a good practice. Not all things end up as we plan them and keeping some options open is the way to go.

Avoid creating detailed things on this stage. It can (and it will) distract you from the global picture. Also, it takes time without real profit.

The best way to start is to just block out simple shapes to show the desired path and event areas this will save so much time and you can easily test out level without any lag error .

Kill your darlings here, if an idea isn't working, move on. Fast. This is the space to try things out and see if they work. Sometimes you may need to go back to the goals for the level and change that, but at least you figured it out here and not later on when the sunk cost fallacy has already sunk in.

As much as people say "You must be your harshest critic!", please seek peer feedback from individuals within your industry - whether they are your colleagues or testers. Also, don't intervene in their playtests. Give them some privacy. They must see your work as it truly is and not through your lens.

In my experience, best level playtesters are people outside of the game industry and even non-gamers. Also childrens. Give your level as hard test as you can to collect most precious data.

Playtesting and feedback gathering are invaluable tools for level designers, providing crucial insights into the effectiveness and enjoyment of their creations. By observing players interacting with the level, designers can identify areas that work well, pinpoint challenges that are too difficult or too easy, and uncover any bugs or glitches that may hinder the gameplay experience. Feedback from playtesters and other sources provides further guidance, offering opinions, suggestions, and potential solutions to improve the level's overall design.

Feedback in any way shape or form is welcome. It's basic input you get which will help you. So deter no feedback, regardless of its shape, apparent intent or quantity/format. The real challenge is split between parsing the feedback and extracting actionable items from the current feedback. It is recommended to intervene in the experience only if there is a specific request from the person that is supposed to give you the feedback (people get stuck in certain spots or can encounter unexpected challenges. That's also a good thing to notice on the spot and write down details about the situation). Internal feedback (peer feedback) and external feedback (end user experience-based feedback) each have their uses. Leave no feedback line unread.

Consider the type of game you are making. If it's a MOBA, does the camera angle for the map provide one team a more unfair advantage than the other? Data is the most important tool in early feedback sessions to isolate issues. When you conduct play-testing, it's easy to become frustrated when a player doesn't play the way it is designed. But worry not! In that frustration you'll find some of the most valuable feedback to improve on your level.

Don't get offended by the feedback you receive. Give the people giving you feedback the benefit of the doubt, they are there to help and not to challenge you. Even if you "think" that you know better - you actually don't. If the feedback shows that there are issues THEN THERE ARE ISSUES! It remains to you to see how you will overcome them but please start with the needs and frustration expressed in the feedback material. Don't waste your time and the time of your team on making a bad concept work!

There is feedback that makes sense and feedback that does not make sense in terms of mandatory polishing. Discerning between the two is critical. Keep in mind the initial concept, the purpose and the tools/ingredient in place. There are certain immovable parameters from each iterative item. Also keep in mind that things aren't always as "they feel". But "how they feel" matters on certain aspects or cases. The real challenge is between implementing as much actionable items and maintaining the concept intact.

Polishing can take forever so, please, be realistic. First, make a list of all polishing tasks and required time, then heartlessly cut off less important to make sure you can do the rest in reasonable time. Be pessimistic about required time! Polishing takes enormous amount of it.

It's good to make variations of the product, rather than sticking to one idea, this can help improve it. Further touches can also improve the level, what can help is getting feedback from another perspective.

That must be mostly done much earlier, right before the prototype stage. But after level done, you maybe like to check these things again.

Regarding ethics and morals: These are set by the company directors, or by your clients, and are based on market analysis and customer needs, but it comes to you to implement them. If you feel that a certain direction might benefit the final product, then talk to your team and higher-ups. If you don't have access to the directors, then make small changes that even out the experience and send it immediately for testing. As for difficulty, "All levels must be completed by players but not by all players, or at least not in the same time frame". When setting difficulty, think of the current state of the player's progress: Where are they? What experience do they have? Is this the beginning, middle, or end of the game or an episode?

Ensure that you have a wide range of people test your product. People from different backgrounds and cultures can. Help you avoid imagery that can get you in a lot of trouble if it makes it out to the public. It can also keep you from making things that people cannot interact with.

The only thing to add here is I wish more game developers take this more seriously if it’s within their scope to add accessibility features or have it form the basis of how games are developed.

Regarding learning and improving. Think about improving your skills by looking at work of others. But don't copy them. Try and break their methods and actions into atomic parameters and by the end of the day you will understand them better then they do.

One way to learn and improve on level design is participating on blocktober. It’s similar to inktober, an event that happens in October, but instead of drawings you are making levels. Checking other people’s levels and sharing your own can be a great way to learn, do networking and can also be an incentive to create your levels. Just use a level editor from some game if it’s your first time, it’s going to save you a lot of time.

Learning is an organic action. Each level explored or part of level explored from another creator can inspire you or teach you new tricks. Keeping an open mind and being curious is more of a habit than a task. Don't focus on breaking things apart right away. Some pieces work well amalgamated without forcing you to understand each piece. Based on the need of complexity, work smart and assimilate smart. As previously stated: Make learning/being curious a habit. Not a task.

Key component in making a believable environment is the presence of flaws. A perfect place feels artificial (Goes for excessive symmetry or overly tidy/readable spots). Make sure your "flaws" are well thought and are added there to lull the awareness of the final beneficiary (player) in order to provide him/her with the intended experience. Both "flawed" and "believable/immersive". Perfectionism kills art and expression.

What I've found the most effective (as in, bang for the buck) is to show your work to others and observe them play. In it's simplest form this can be a playthrough recording. Just make sure you choose the right audience and think twice about what the real reason for the player's actions is while watching.

Here is a small industry hint: Avoid people who give you little feedback. Your level is not prefect, no matter what they say. Take joy in long conversations and walls of text.

in my training experience best feedback comes in form of video and not text. Encourage testers to record their experience or to stream the walkthrough to you (and preferably you record it). Sometimes take more than one opinion, because people can be tired or plain dislike the level, hence affecting their bias towards your level and its parts.

It’s just a reminder, but level design isn’t environment art. There's a lot of videos about “speed level design” or videos talking about level design in general and people talk there about making the level beautiful. You have to make a playable level, your focus is on gameplay. You use lights, color and shapes to make the player look at the right place, not to make the most beautiful piece of art. If you share just a beautiful screenshot about your level and it’s from a game that I never played,it is too difficult to know if it’s good or not without a video, because there isn’t gameplay on a screenshot. We need to see things happening, the player moving, if there’s enemies, they interacting with the player, etc.