Step 8. Playtesting............................
Now that all the parts of your level are in place, it is time to show it to some other peo-
ple, let them play it, and get some feedback. Playtesting is a crucial part of game design,
and level design is no different. These test subjects may include other members of your
team, but should also include people less intimately involved with your project. A lot
can be said for a fresh pair of eyes looking at your game and your level and giving you
feedback on whether the gameplay accomplished what you had hoped.
Playtesting a level can be as easy as giving a level to someone, asking her to play it,
and having her tell you what she thinks. Another useful method, especially for level
testing, is to actually be there with the tester when she tries to play your level and
observe how she plays it. Does she get stuck in locations you had not thought of? Does
she have trouble finding her way around? Do the gameplay situations provide her with
enough challenge? Watching other people play your level can be extremely educational
and informative as to whether the level flows and plays well.
In the worst case, playtesting may reveal that your level is not as fun to play as you
had thought, and that major reworking will be necessary to make it fun. As a designer
you must not be resistant when someone tells you your level is hard to navigate, con-
fusing, or simply no fun. Certainly, get a second and third and fourth opinion on it, but
when you start hearing the same complaints from a number of different people, you
need to realize that there may be some truth to their comments and your level may
need some serious reworking. Many designers who have invested a lot of time and
energy in a level find it very difficult to then take criticism of their work. There is no
denying that hearing someone tear apart a month’s worth of work can be disheartening,
but this is the purpose of playtesting. You need to take your testers’ comments to heart,
recognize the problems with your level, and start working on the level again. Thorough
playtesting can often be the difference between a merely good level and a truly great
one.
Process Variations............................
Of course, the process for level design I outline above is not the only way to make a
level. Like the “dos” and “don’ts” of level design I described earlier, each level designer
needs to find the method that works best for herself and her team. Many good design-
ers use a method not entirely different from what I have outlined above, but with
variations that better suit their own style of designing.
One potentially useful variation is to incorporate steps three through six. Instead of
laying out the entire level, you can start with a particular room or area. Then, before
moving on to set up the rest of the level, try to set up gameplay in just that area. Once
you are happy with how well that section plays, move on to setting up the rest of the
level, adding gameplay to the areas as you create them. This way, if an area has to be
enlarged to make the gameplay work properly, less work is wasted since the areas
around may not have been built yet. As I mentioned before, it is important to be careful
to not design yourself into a corner. You do not want to spend a lot of time working on
the gameplay for a specific area only to have to remove it later since the rest of the level
no longer fits in the space available. If you are going to set up gameplay for particular
areas before the entire level is built, it makes the most sense to build the architecture
472 Chapter 23: Level Design