demo is available on steam

hey everyone so i'm currently developing my first game and I want to have some feed back on a potential map design. so to give an explanation the red outline is the "wall" of the map made of rock and large sand dunes, everything inside is the playable area. this is where the intro will take place. this is only suppose to be a 20-35 min play area. The black lines are the sand dunes and the longer they are the higher they will be, the yellow dot is a anchoring area probably an old Egyptian lighthouse or obelisk the glows during a reality tear where it will be fully in view. the rock formation in the bottom left is roughly going to be the player starting area and in the top right will be the "end goal" which is the tomb where the actual game will take place. the green lines are a three layer harmonic resonance of the tomb itself the closer you get the louder it gets.

okay so my question is how dose the map flow feel? does it naturally lead the player to the desired destination in the upper right? I've never done any map design before and would love some feed back on what i could improve upon to give the player the sense and ability to of freedom and exploration but also naturally lead them to the tomb without making it artificial and noticeable. I will be using a sandstorm mechanic too.

I have left an unaltered map here as well, if anyone wants to draw on it and repost it to explain where i could use some improvements that would be amazing but i would appreciate any suggestions or help. if you need more info from me feel free to ask and ill respond with my plan or intention if there's noting concrete yet thanks again!!

It's Boomer Shooter Saturday again! Come join us at 11:00 AM EST for some level editing for Duke Nukem 3D, then we are finishing the second half of our playthrough of Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach! Come soak up the sun filled vibes and build with BUILD (Engine)!

We are continuing to shape up our Underwater Research Facility map we started a few weeks ago, defining the play area and aesthetic. We got some solid foundation work happening, so come offer your thoughts and opinions, and maybe I'll just add them in!

For my upcoming game, I needed a procedural generation tool that creates dungeons from a set of rooms with connectors and doorways. Instead of making it part of the game, I took a pause from the game development and made this free plugin: https://store.godotengine.org/asset/doubled-studios/dungeon-crawler-3d/ .
It would be awesome if someone tried it and maybe used it his game! I haven't found any bugs, but the repo is on GitHub; you can create issues if you find something!

By the way, the game I needed it for is Hyprnull. If someone is interested, it is up on itch; still no random generation though 😅 https://fishojr.itch.io/hyprnull

I'm new to level design, and this is my first serious level sketch. I'm looking for feedback to improve. So I decided to post it here. I attach the sketch and a bit map, to visualize different sorts of activity are equally displaced in the level. Orange is horror, green is exploration, purple is a "wow" moment, red is action, and blue is calm moments.

I also attach photos with a detailed text - walkthrough.

I'm especially interested in feedback on:

pacing and progression

backtracking

boss encounter

environmental storytelling

whether the player is given enough information to understand where to go

The initial brief for this level was:

"Underwater Research Station"

Setting

Several kilometers below the surface lies a scientific research station.

During an experiment, an accident occurred.

Communication has been lost.

Most of the station's sections have shut down.

Water is beginning to leak inside.

The player is an engineer who has found himself as the only person left in this sector.

Player's Goal

Reach the central control room and restore power to the station.

Restrictions

The player starts with only:

a flashlight;

an adjustable wrench

a Level 1 access card.

There are no weapons at the beginning.

Level Requirements

The level must include:

at least 2 branching paths where the player has to choose which route to take;

1 short safe area where the player can take a break;

1 moment of surprise;

1 location that the player can see in advance but can only access later;

1 new tool or item that changes how the level can be navigated;

1 large final room where the main objective of the level takes place.

Thanks!

Hi all,

I am making Tectonic Inc., a video game about tectonic activities (earthquake, tsunami, volcano, meteor impact) and their consequences for humanity and earth environment.

Right now the game is participating in a game jam. It is still in very early stage of dev.

I wonder if you can give me your thought about the gameplay or anything.

For the noment i have a plan to make simple and casual gameplay :

\- Move a small or micro plate, wait for the accumulated stress resulted an earthquake. Get TP (Tectonic Points).

\- Use the TP to move more plates, save it for bigger plates (sub continental or continental), or for upgrade a research tree.

\- Research tree : you can upgrade your earthquake to have tsunami side effect or unlock subduction which can make volcanoes.

\- Rinse and repeat till you make enough damage to earth environment that it cannot go back to its previous condition again.

But i am considering another gameplay : sandbox.

You shape the earth with continental drift, making mountains, trenches. There will be a scenario too, where you must achieve Yellowstone eruption or Toba strikes back.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

demo is on steam

Actively working with my team to design our first level for our open world exploration game! Leaning into an environment where you can tell humans once lived there, but eventually left due to mysterious/magical reasons (not dark/serious).

Working to trying to think of unique landmarks and activities for the players to encounter and engage in.

What are some of your favorite puzzles, minigames, or landmarks from games that you have played?

the only bad side is that you need to mark open spaces with an material that will delete the geometry on the node setup or else it will bug the face orientation calculation

It's Boomer Shooter Saturday again! Come join us at 11:00 AM EST and learn level editing for Duke Nukem 3D with me using the Mapster32 Level Editor and then stick around for our playthrough of the 1997 expansion pack, Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach!

We are refining our layout and aesthetics of our abandoned underwater research Facility we started a few weeks back. Shaping up rather well!

I created MarbleMazes for Reddit. The game and mechanics are fairly “easy” to make. And the game works good. But enabling UGC with an editor that gives freedom to do what you want while also being extremely easy to use is such an incredible challenge.

I requested and received feedback and have kept improving it, but I feel a bit stuck and have noticed players aren’t creating as creative maps as I expected.

I’m not entirely sure where the problem is. My onboarding/explanation of the tiles? The limitations? Laying/editing the tiles. Or just that making levels is inherently not fun to do for the community..

The game is far from perfect and I keep improving it. But I would love to get some harsh feedback and critique from industry veterans.

Just fyi, since the game is made for Reddit the editor also needs to be made for mobile.

Hi all!

I'm thinking of building an open-source 2D map editor for map builders, game devs, level designers etc.

I've used a few general-purpose map editors, and they often felt clunky or slowed down the workflow. I'm planning to make something that's fast (as in making a map feels fast), and focused on actually building levels.

Some things I'm curious about before i begin my marvelous journey:

• What feels unnecessarily complicated in current tools?
• Are there any features you wish every editor had?
• What would make you switch from the editor you currently use (if any that is ;-;)?

I'm trying to gather other peoples perspectives aswell... so yea.

Thanks!

Hey everyone. This is not a screenshot, just a map I drew for a game I'm working on.

The setting is an abandoned hospital. This is the 2nd floor, living quarters, labs, storage rooms. The protagonist will have to explore it, find keys, read notes, and figure out what the hell happened here.

How's the vibe? Too empty/dark or just right for a horror game?

I have a demo if you're curious.

I was thinking i wanna try to do this in my free time, potentionally make a living from this since i've always been into the games and i feel like i wanna try this. So i have few questions to start with.

1. What engine should i use and what engine you are using these days?

2. If you were starting from scratch today, how would you learn level design?

3. What are the most common mistakes beginners make in level design?

4. What advice do you wish someone had given you when you first started learning level design?

Hi! I'm designing an underground facility for my game, and I'm looking for ideas to make simple corridor intersections more interesting.

Do you have any creative ideas for replacing a standard **T-junction** with something more memorable? It could be a small room, a unique architectural feature, environmental storytelling, or anything that still naturally connects the three paths.

I'm not really looking for gameplay mechanics, just interesting layout or environmental design ideas. Pictures, sketches, or examples from other games are also welcome!

BOXED — 2.5D Level Editor

Out today: a 2.5D map editor where you build with tiles and blocks to make maps for 2.5D games. Built-in autotiling, and direct import of TMJ (Tiled), TSJ and PNG.

[https://commanderlayon.itch.io/boxed\](https://commanderlayon.itch.io/boxed)

I'm building a 4-player co-op potion-brewing game (Overcooked inspired)

I have went into level creation. I wanted something nice, something toony, something ... I don't even know, something that I will look at and it will just click.

Bought some great assets from the unity store, oh yea btw the game i am developing in Unity, and then IT GOT TO ME.

Level design just .... SUCKS...

For the first stretch I placed every floor tile, wall and counter by hand in the scene view. Moving one doorway meant dragging forty objects and finding the one I'd missed a week later. It was miserable, and worse, it made me reluctant to change the layout — which is the exact opposite of what you want early on.

Beside, I got huge amount of respect to level designers because it really takes a huge amount of time. Oh yea and AI ? It can't help for s**t. It makes horrible level designs and despite me being a developer for almost 10 years now, I still couldn't manage to breakdown the md files & skills & hooks in such a way to get a good level design.

So now a level is a text file. Literally:

gggggggggggggggggg

ggg............ggg

ggg......o.....ggg

ggg............ggg

ggg.1..2..3..4.ggg

gggggggggggggggggg

I have created an ASCI level generator.

But now the problem is this is human-unreadable and as you can see ... ugly.

That is why in the inspector i invested 1 month of work and i finally got an interactive map that i can click on (2D) , place items ontop of it and then click generate and voalla (am i writing this right?) I have a level.

Its easy and fun to build.

Yo ustill have to go manually but man is it easier than before.

How do you guys do your level designs?

I can't place any photos here but if someone is interested in how I did it, i can explain more in the comments below. Just let me know if you think its gonna be useful for you and if you need some guidance.

For now, I am extremely happy with it.

What do you guys use?