How can you train level design students to meet the changing needs of the game industry?

Exposing level design students to a diversity of genres and platforms provides real world exposure that will prepare them for the constantly evolving needs of the game industry. As game designer Sid Meier once said, "Games are a series of interesting decisions." By working on a variety of game types and platforms, students develop adaptability, problem-solving skills, and a deeper understanding of player engagement. This diverse experience equips them to innovate and thrive in a dynamic industry where versatility is a valuable asset, ensuring they can meet evolving industry demands effectively.

You should let them play all kinds of games (ones that showcases good level designs) and let them explore how everything ties up perfectly. After they have been allowed to play a few games, you could ask them to create a prototype of some genre so that they practice level designing and are able to make the most out of the games they played. This should help them find links and patterns on how different. genre have different styles of level design.

Encourage students to break down iconic levels from different genres, examining their main mechanics, visuals, pacing, and player emotions. This helps develop a specific understanding of genre-based design. Challenge students to experiment with combining elements from various genres, promoting creativity and adaptability. Familiarize students with different game engines and level editors, showcasing their strengths and limitations for various platforms. Explain how factors like processing power, screen size, and input methods influence level design decisions on different platforms. Pair students with diverse genre expertise and platform preferences to encourage creative cross-pollination and expand their design horizons.

Training level design students to balance player agency and narrative coherence is helps to prepare them for the evolving game industry. As renowned game designer Hideo Kojima once said, "Games are a new storytelling medium." Striking this balance enables students to create compelling, player-driven experiences while maintaining coherent narratives. This skill aligns with industry trends towards interactive storytelling, ensuring graduates are adaptable and valuable assets to any organization.

Encourage students to create a visual map of the different choices players can make in a level. They should also outline the effects these choices have on the environment, characters, and overall narrative progression. This exercise helps them understand how player agency and the story are interconnected. Assign students the task of creating environment interactions that convey a story without relying on dialogue or direct explanations. This exercise highlights the importance of level design in guiding player understanding and agency.

Organize short and intense design challenges where teams have to quickly prototype a game based on a specific theme. This encourages rapid iteration, communication under pressure, and the ability to adapt level design to different artistic and technical constraints. Utilize platforms such as Slack, Trello, or Jira to facilitate communication, task management, and feedback loops between disciplines throughout the development process. Conduct playtests with different disciplines, such as programmers, artists, and sound designers, to gather valuable feedback from various perspectives. Hold post-mortem discussions where all disciplines reflect on their experiences, identify communication breakdowns, and learn from both successes and failures.

Showcase exciting examples of games that effectively utilize these technologies, sparking creativity and demonstrating their potential in shaping level design. Analyze how game studios overcame challenges and maximized the strengths of each technology. Motivate students to actively explore and stay updated with the latest advancements in the field by attending conferences, reading industry publications, and participating in online communities. Engage in discussions about the ethical implications of utilizing these technologies, creating awareness about concerns such as player privacy, accessibility, and addiction. Guide students to make responsible choices in their designs and consider the broader impact of their creations.

Different platforms and genres need particular approaches. VR’s immersive nature implies interactivity, while other genres rely on cause and effect (i.e. destruction) to drive environmental gameplay. Knowing the scope and rules of your olayer experience helps you shaping the environment to the needs of the story and the game mechanics involved. Certain new tools recent ones powered by AI, let you generate content procedurally and create entire environments out of a prompt… how is that helping your experience? Is it a base or is it just lazy design? In short, think about your goals for that level or area, and how the tools support the process, not the other way around.

The main benefit of modding is the community feedback. There’s no use in making a level if no one is going to play it and you’re not getting any feedback out of it. Put yourself out there, out of the safe zone, and learn to accept, balance, and manage feedback. That iteration process is extremely important.

Level design provides a platform for personal storytelling, allowing individuals to explore their emotions and share unique perspectives. Students can create games that tackle social issues, encourage self-reflection, or simply bring joy and wonder. Level design bridges different disciplines such as art, programming, storytelling, and psychology, encouraging students to expand their knowledge base and gain a holistic understanding of design. Level design skills are highly valued in various industries, including education, healthcare, architecture, and urban planning. Students can utilize these skills to create interactive learning experiences, immersive simulations, or engaging marketing campaigns.

Watch GDC talks about environment and other sources as well. Understand primarily the concept of flow and don’t underestimate the importance of process at first. List goals, draft on paper, move to a whitebox, test it, test it some more, testing it again for good measure, then dress it. Oh, and test it again. Did I mention testing it?

If you are a level design student, the best way (and fun way) to learn is to play more games, see how things are done and try to make a level for random game ideas you may have. Once done, hand it out to your friends and ask them to criticise your work. After your first 20 levels, you should see a big difference in the way your levels are! Good Luck!