Introduction to Level Design

Offered By: LaSalle College via edX

Course Description

Overview

Do you have a love of video games and a desire to take your creativity and eye for detail to a whole new level?

You may be asking yourself: What does a level designer do? What makes a successful video game level?

The Introduction to Level Design XSeries program will help you answer all these questions. You will be introduced to game development through level design theory, terminology and the development process. You will also learn how to create actions, events and objects in 2D and 3D, and environments that support character development and player experience—all leading to a logical outcome while meeting the objectives of the game.

The program focuses on deconstructing, analyzing and documenting various pre-existing levels from shipped games, as well as designing and building multiplayer and single-player levels in a game engine.

This program is based on the Game Design and VFX School at our LaSalle College Vancouver campus, which has been crowned the #1 undergraduate school in Canada for video game design by the Princeton Review 10 years in a row.

Get ready to take your knowledge to a higher level!

Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: The Basics of Level Design

Discover how to create captivating video games with not just your visuals and gameplay, but level design as well.

Course 2: Types of Games in Level Design

Explore the many types of video games and their level design considerations.

Course 3: Shooters and Game Engines in Level Design

Shooter games have been and continue to be the dominant genre in video games. Learn about this important genre in game design.

Courses

0 reviews
4 weeks, 10-15 hours a week, 10-15 hours a week
View details

This course will be retired on September 30, 2023.

There are many categories of video games, often classified by their characteristics or goals—not by the type of gameplay they contain. Are you curious to learn about the growing variety of genres and subgenres? Want to discover which game genres appeal to you? No matter what your interest, this course takes you through what you need to know about genres in the game world.

In this course, you will learn about the types of games that exist in the industry and their unique characteristics. You will explore platforming, racing and strategy games, and identify the factors and requirements that level designers must consider when designing these video games.

Game genres can also have subgenres, and many games fit into multiple genres! We will explore the subgenres of games that branched off from other genres, taking advantage of their mechanics to create entirely new genres, each with their own level design considerations.
1 review
4 weeks, 10-15 hours a week, 10-15 hours a week
View details

This course will be retired on September 30, 2023.

This course introduces you to the fundamentals of game level design—a crucial aspect of video game design that centers around the creation of playable spaces.

As a level designer, you will be required to create well-designed levels that direct the movement of the player(s) through the game—often without the player consciously recognizing they’re being directed.

This course will introduce you to the core concepts involved in designing a game level, along with important steps in the design process. The course explores what a level is, who is responsible for designing levels, and the different roles involved in game level design.

Using different sample designs, such as dungeon design and other popular genres of roguelikes and adventure games, we will identify the elements of the various stages of the design process used in the game industry and how they have evolved through time.
0 reviews
4 weeks, 10-15 hours a week, 10-15 hours a week
View details

This course will be retired on September 30, 2023.

Do you want to learn more about game genres and subgenres? This course continues your exploration of level design by introducing you to an important genre: the shooter. The shooter genre is huge in the game world, containing a wide variety of subgenres with their own gameplay needs. This course outlines some of these subgenres and identifies common shooter mechanics, level design considerations, and examples to help you understand how these concepts are applied. This course also provides you with the development tools that video game level designers use to build their levels.

No matter what genre of game you are designing for, the process of creating a level is similar. It requires planning, forethought, and constant testing and iteration. To ensure you’re on the right track, we finish off by reviewing all the key concepts you have learned throughout the three courses for the Level Design Professional Certificate, including the principles and terminology of good level design, specific considerations for certain genres, and the level design process.

Taught by

John Appleby and Tahirah Mirza