Introduction

Level design is a term used in the game industry to describe structures, activities and processes related to game levels. Levels are commonly understood as structural markers of progress within a game itself. Examples of "level" may include a defined region of 2-dimensional (2D) or 3-dimensional (3D) space, often with a distinct visual art style or theme ("biome") and gameplay challenges. In such cases, "level design" may refer to the process of constructing levels, the discipline­ of level design itself or the spatial and aesthetic qualities of the level's design by which it may be evaluated. Levels are typically built in level editors. Level editors are features built into game engines or added as plug-in software that let designers build 2D or 3D spaces for games.

Level design has historically been a difficult area to analyze critically for both industry and academic writers, with comprehensive explorations on the topic being a relatively recent development. Despite the common usages described above, what qualifies as a "level" in games of different mediums or genres may vary wildly: a forest-themed "zone" spanning the digital equivalent of many square miles in a 3D immersive simulation is vastly different than what one would find in a match-3 puzzle game, where a "level" describes individual iterations of the puzzle board with different arrangements of pieces.

Indeed, the terminology that writers, game players and even game industry professionals use to refer to levels can vary wildly. Terms like "level" or "map" are both commonly used to refer to spatial constructs that denote a setting for gameplay. "Level" may imply a mechanism for progression in the game in addition to a space, as levels are usually encountered in a specific order, while "map" can denote a selectable setting for game action, as in multiplayer competitive games. Other terms have wildly different meanings based on their usage. "World" for example, may describe the entirety of a game's spatial setting in an immersive simulation game (i.e. an entire game world) or a series of individual levels that share a theme, as in mascot-driven 2D platform games (i.e. "this level is in the water world"). "Zone" likewise may refer to a themed region of a larger explorable world, such as a forest or arctic zone, or, like "world", to a set of levels sharing a theme, as in the Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega, 1991) series. "Boards" or "stages" are sometimes used but can, like "levels", refer to both spatial constructs or to systems for tracking progression. Terms from classic arcade games, like "round" or "wave" (Zagal et al., 2008), also track progression ("I made it to round seven before I ran out of quarters"), but games structured with them often do not progress spatially and keep a consistent background. For the sake of clarity, this article will use "level" to encompass these terms broadly except in cases analyzing these specific variations.

At one time, it was believed that such genre and terminology complications made writing about level design "impossible" (Rollings & Adams, 2003), as what makes a level successful for one style of game may not be applicable for another. While this is no longer a common attitude in the industry¹, these ambiguities warrant an evaluation of historic uses of levels and "level design" before an exploration of current usage can be attempted.

The Evolution of Levels and Level Design

To understand modern uses of levels and level design, we must first understand how these elements of games evolved. As game designer and scholar Robert Yang observes, the modern popular conception of levels and level design centers on 3D immersive spaces (Yang, 2015). However, games have long had means for tracking progress such as rounds or waves in both digital and non-digital games, and have included spatial elements in the form of playfields and boards since the earliest known games. Such concepts hearken back to early electronic arcade games, and even further back to non-digital games (many playground games and sports are played in some form of "rounds"). Though a full exploration of the history of level design is outside the scope of this article, this section offers some historical context to the evolution of game levels and other playful spaces.

Historical Level Precedents

In a 2016 article on the origins of themed game levels, game designer Scott Rogers describes levels not as constructs that emerged from games alone, but from the broader cultural sources such as art and literature (Rogers, Hell, Hyboria, and Disney Land: The Origins of Themed Video Game Level Design 2016). Postmodern literature scholar and game designer Jeff Howard likewise points to literary sources of "dungeons", a common level style, in literary traditions where protagonists descend into multi-level underground caves or vaults (Howard, 2008). Rogers specifically cites Dante's conception of Hell in The Inferno (Alighieri & Longfellow, 2010), which features descending "circles", each with its own strong theme and increasingly severe imagery (Rogers, Hell, Hyboria, and Disney Land: The Origins of Themed Video Game Level Design 2016). He theorizes that the term "level" itself may come from the multi-leveled dungeons, vaults and mines of such literary sources and their player-implemented versions in the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (Gygax and Arneson, 1974).

Connections between space and play occur in our earliest recorded civilizations: early games like the Royal Game of Ur and Senet were race-style games where the markings of the board reflect the pathway that players must take to complete the game (similar to Backgammon). Later games like Chess and Go feature territory control as their primary objective. Arenas for gladiatorial combat and sporting events the early precursors to football (soccer), track and field events, basketball, lacrosse and others utilized (and still do in their modern versions) goals, distance markings, boundary lines and spatial devices (Totten, 2019). Pinball grew from outdoor lawn games where players would throw balls at designated spaces on the ground. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, pinball tables emerged as objects of design as more mechanisms for the tables were invented and as manufacturers sought to align them with games of skill rather than gambling (Smith & Daum, 2021).

Level-like structures and spaces abound in historical works of architecture. Ancient theaters had areas in which a backdrop could be constructed (the "skene") and a dedicated space for the performance to take place (the "proskenion") that could be changed to support the current production. Modern theaters similarly have ways to change the lighting or soundscape of the stage and add special effects, much like the work done by level designers, as well as environment, lighting and technical artists. Sacred spaces are likewise designed to choreograph the occupant's use of the space and provide staging for religious rituals. The use of lighting to create specific atmospheres is noteworthy, as is the way that many religious sites incorporate sacred imagery, symbols or sculpture into the architecture.

Digital Levels

As stated previously, level design was one job among several that a game developer would do in the early video game industry. Most early games featured a single screen's space of territory, but the choices of what was in that space or how that space was presented was meaningful. Such is the case of games like William Higinbotham's Tennis for Two (1958) and Atari's Pong (1972): both games portray tennis, but one is presented as viewed from the side (Tennis for Two) and the other from above (Pong). This distinction greatly changes the affordances of play in each game: Tennis for Two players must focus on propelling their "ball" over the net in addition to hitting the opposing player's shots, while Pong players have no net but must focus more intently on their position on the court.

In 1982, Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set (1982) was released, allowing players to design their own pinball tables for play on their computer, but more notably becoming the first commercially accessible "level editor" (Donovan, 2010). While this was occurring, the types and complexity of spaces seen in games were growing. Konami's Scramble (1981) was one of the first games to feature not only scrolling environments, but levels that were visually distinct from one another: most early arcade games had players encounter different waves of challenge in an unchanging space. Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1981) coupled levels with visually and mechanically distinct elements with narrative progression, giving the sense that the player was part of a story.

Three-dimensional games slowly appeared in the 1980s with titles like Battlezone (Atari, 1980) or Rescue on Fractalus! (Atari, 1985). In 1992, id Software would release Wolfenstein 3D, one of the first first-person shooter games. Wolfenstein set the stage for id's release of Doom in 1993 and id's distribution of the Doom level editor, allowing players to create their own levels (called Doom WADs, named after the format of Doom's package files), starting the practice of "modding". This would become common not only for id itself², but for other companies such as Epic Games (creators of the Unreal Engine) and Valve (creators of the Source Engine). Eventually, this gave rise to freely accessible tools like Game Maker, Unity, Construct and numerous others. These differ from earlier editors and modding kits in that they are not tied to any one particular game style, allowing for easier customization, and in that they often feature simpler and more stable interfaces than editors originating as internal studio tools.

Perspectives on Levels

Through both our survey of terms for levels and the brief history of levels, the fragmented state of terminology describing game levels and level design is apparent. Therefore, it is useful to focus on finding common elements among the different perspectives on levels and level design. To define what levels mean for individual genres, then to identify best practices for each genre is impractical. Just one genre could inspire a book's worth of text, and this would tell us little of "level design" as a field. Therefore, this article will explore several definitions used in the industry and in critical literature, from which common elements might be found.

Game scholar Michael Nitsche uses the term game space to describe a number of spatial phenomena in games, particularly ones with 3D environments due to how they "possess specific qualities and favor expressive techniques that differ from other formats" (Nitsche, 2008). Nitsche describes five "planes" from which one may analyze game spaces:

• Rule-based space – the mathematical and technical processes that form the functioning of the game's worlds, such as the "game level architecture".

• Mediated space – The presentation of the game with regards to how the game's imagery is shown to the player.

• Fictional space – How the presentation of the game allows players to imagine the world inside the game.

• Play space – The real-world space in which the player is interacting with the game itself and the hardware used to play the game.

• Social space – The social context created by playing the game.

It is outside the scope of this article to give a full accounting of these planes, but it is worth noting that this listing explicitly places game levels in the plane of "rule-based space". "Game space" offers a generalized view of games' interactivity as they occur in space rather than focusing on the spaces as being ontologically distinct. Similarly, art scholar Ellen Mueller focuses on "architecture" as a component of four-dimensional (4D) artworks, artworks that incorporate not only the elements of traditional 2D and 3D, but also elements of time and space (Mueller, 2017). Mueller includes games among art media such as film, animation, exhibition and performance art. In both cases, architecture, and by extension levels, are treated as a component of games and game space while also inviting their own practices of formal and aesthetic consideration.

Kristine Jørgensen's concept of gameworlds (Jørgensen, 2013) synthesizes several of these approaches, in seeing the "spaces and objects, sights and sounds of the gameworld" as a representation of the game system and primary tool through which a player engages with the system (Backe, 2015). Jørgensen focuses on gameworlds as interfaces of the game, either as an extension of existing graphic interface overlays in the game or as diegetic interfaces that focus player action while also being a place that an avatar inhabits. Jørgensen's description of gameworlds offers a critical bridge between more general understandings and the functional ones offered by game design practitioners who, as we will see, argue that game levels are a critical part of shaping player experience within games.

Game designer Scott Rogers embraces the ambiguity of "level" itself, highlighting the term's use for environments or locations, different gameplay experiences ("the swimming level"), units counting player progression in repetitive puzzle or arcade-style games, or player rankings (Rogers, 2010). He also notes that both audiences and designers bandy many terms for "level" about in everyday speech, as discussed earlier in this article. While we have discussed this as complicating the goal of understanding levels and level design, Rogers offers definitions for the following variations of "level" with the goal of finding common elements:

• Rounds – divided units of play, the passing of which is marked by time or the achievement of points (example: a period during which the blocks fall at a particular speed in Tetris (Pajitnov, 1984)).

• Waves – distinct rounds of increasingly challenging gameplay, often used in combat-based games (example: the successive formations of enemy ships that a player fights in Galaga (Namco, 1981)).

• Stages – can be similar to rounds, but may refer to distinct spaces in a game³ (example: the individual levels in Mega Man 2 (Capcom, 1988), each themed after their corresponding "Robot Master" boss character).

• Acts or Chapters – gameplay separations strongly associated with story-based games (example: the story chapters in Max Payne (Rockstar Games, 2001), many of which also take place in a distinct environment).

• Maps – distinct spaces in a game based on a theme (example: the Blood Gulch map in Halo: Combat Evolved's (Microsoft Game Studios, 2001) multiplayer modes).

• World – a space or set of spaces in a game united by a strong visual or genre theme. Sometimes also called a "land" (example: the themed spaces in Super Mario 64 (Nintendo, 1996) or collections of levels in Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo, 1990)).

Game designer Mark Brown likewise identifies that some levels are designed to highlight a concise set of ideas (example: a dark cave level in a platform jumping game where you must navigate obstacles while carrying a lantern; Brown, 2015). Like Rogers, Brown is describing ways in which the uniqueness of individual levels, in this case, based on gameplay "set pieces", allow players to distinguish levels from one another. In these cases, the spatial arrangement of level geometry such as ledges, walls, pits and gameplay objects like switches, enemies or hazards is done to further emphasize this central theme.

Game designer and author Anna Anthropy uses the umbrella term "scenes" to capture levels, rounds, waves and other terms like those listed by Rogers. Of scenes, Anthropy states that they are "the most basic unit of pacing in a game" (Anthropy & Clark, 2014). As she says, scenes can be whole levels or a space of gameplay immediately in front of the player – what they see on the screen at a given time. Throughout their book A Game Design Vocabulary, Anthropy and fellow author Naomi Clark describe games as "conversations" between the designer and player. Anthropy's sections of the book are devoted to developing the grammar of these conversations, and she argues that scenes are spaces in which "verbs" – the interactive mechanics of gameplay – are developed (Anthropy & Clark, 2014). This development of verbs – establishing them in the player's mind and having the player encounter them in different gameplay contexts – is important as a means of connecting scenes and levels to level design, where a designer consciously uses scenes to develop the gameplay verbs.

Designer and scholar Robert Yang perhaps best synthesizes these professional and critical mindsets while addressing levels as both an integrated part of games, and a distinct art form. His definitions for levels are more focused, but still address the ambiguity of the terms "level" and "level design" when he describes them as simultaneously "data, process, space, and politics" (Yang, 2015). He argues that "levels" in these states have been traditionally thought of as⁴:

• Levels as Data – a packet of information in the computer (a file containing the data of a game environment created in an editor) that references other data (the art, sound and script asset files called by the level).

• Levels as Process or Profession – a role or identity defined by the increasingly specialized needs of studio-based game production, but often vaguely defined in job postings. Common aspects include the use of level editors, awareness of spatial design and collaboration with different parts of a development staff.

• Levels as Space – understood through formalist theories of virtual architecture with an emphasis on how gameplay spaces flow into one another (usually accomplished through iterative prototypes or "block-outs"). Refers often to concepts of aesthetic formalism where "truth" or "essence" of form are enforced. Distinct from "environment art", where the 2D and 3D artworks that add visual interest to a level are created and placed in the level.

• Levels as Politics – questions of who is allowed to define the form and qualities of space. How formalism or design intent breaks down when subjected to human behavior and social systems. How communities influence the use of space and how to engage communities in how spaces are defined.

Yang also notes that there is a strong bias in the industrial/commercial game industry ("AAA") towards 3D character-based games in how level design is discussed – with levels in these games defined as 3D spaces much like real-world architecture. By his own admission, his focus in level design is weighted toward 3D as with Nitsche's concept of game space. He notably calls this formal outlook and its associated principles a single "tradition" of level design among others (i.e. a tradition of design for 2D platform jumping games or 2D top-down adventure games). In this way, Yang opens the door for other scholars and designers to develop critical discourse for forms of "level" apart from 3D character-driven space.

From these descriptions, we may distill some properties of levels⁵. From a conceptual point of view, game levels exist as delineators of game ludic or narrative progress and/or as a descriptor of one's location in a game or game world. Examples include one game player telling another that they are on "level three", in "the water world", in "the part where you meet your evil twin", in "the stage where you learn to fly" and so forth. Rogers' descriptions of concepts like "rounds" and "waves" do not themselves denote levels, as they are usually defined with more general gameplay elements such as time, points or enemies (Zagal et al., 2008). However, these progress-marking devices might be experienced in the context of a spatial level or map as in the "survival modes" of combat-based games like Left 4 Dead (Valve, 2008). Likewise, "chapters" or "acts" do not always function as levels, but may be strongly associated with other structures (stages, worlds, zones, etc.) where a portion of the game's story takes place. "Levels" are related to the concepts of game space or gameworlds, but describe a more specific asset or construct existing within games.

In practice, levels are strongly associated with spatial forms of interaction defined by physics collision data in game engines. This may happen in several ways, including through the creation of boundaries via code or with blocked-out level spaces in a level editor. The most commonly held conception of levels occurs within spaces for 2D or 3D character-based interaction, lending to a common association between the design of levels and real-world architecture. However, puzzle or abstract game boards, athletic playfields, race tracks and other non-character-based forms may also function as levels. While levels may be described via their visual or audio elements such as soundscapes, environment art, etc., they are primarily described by the formal qualities of space and players' experiences within them. As such, formal analyses of levels often focus on how spaces flow into one another or communicate to players, but may incorporate the visual or audio qualities of the level as they aid the player's spatial understanding. One example of this is if an art asset serves as a signifier aiding navigation, such as doors of a specific color leading to rooms for different gameplay functions such as healing or saving. As assets themselves within the larger system of a game, levels may be evaluated as works of art and design in their own right. In this way, they lend themselves to formal analyses as with real-world architecture, and to social analyses such as observing how players interact in level space and how the level space reflects the social assumptions of the designers or their audiences.

Evolution of the Term

As we surveyed different professional understandings of levels to refine our own, we may do the same type of survey to refine our understanding of level design as a field. Indeed, the definition of level design has evolved over time from one of a simple arrangement of assets to one that involves designers creating nuanced experiences by integrating the knowledge of multiple disciplines. This section describes some popular definitions and factors that have led to the term's evolution.

Relationship to Game Design

One common area of confusion is whether level design is a discipline of its own or a sub-discipline of the broader discipline of game design. Likewise, the role of level design or a level designer within a team of game designers changes by usage and context, most notably based on the size of the game development team. In larger teams where individuals hold highly-specialized roles, one may see designers with the specific title of level designer, worldbuilder or a similar term. On smaller teams, it is common for team members with other primary roles – such as general game designers, artists or programmers – to take on level design duties, as with the creators of the original Doom (id Software, 1993; Kushner, 2003).

Despite this, level designer and author Rudolf Kremers makes the case for level design as a discipline of its own on equal footing with game design itself, stating that a game designer "formulates a game's rules, while a level designer interprets them for maximum results" (Kremers, 2009). Indeed, the act or process of "level designing" can be one of several working modes adopted by a creator on a game development team. When operating as a game designer, the designer is defining individual rules or elements (objects, characters, hazards, etc.) and their role on the overall game. When operating as a level designer, they may be arranging those elements within individual scenes or defined play spaces. This is reflected in large studio frameworks through level design having its own distinct career path: where level designers once sought promotion into game designer roles (Kremers, 2009), there are now roles from junior to senior rankings in level design itself. With these developments in mind, one may confidently assert that level design is indeed its own discipline or mode of creation distinct from game design.

Seeking a Definition

In the early stages of the game industry, the game's programmer or a general game designer would also design levels, if the game had distinct levels at all. By the late 1990s, level design emerged as a unique role and process within a game production. Designers Jay Wilbur and John Romero offer some early conceptualizations of the role of level design in these productions. Wilbur cryptically describes level design as "where the rubber hits the road" (Saltzman, 1999). Romero, echoing this sentiment in more specific terms, says that level designers have "a very responsible position, because maps are where the game takes place" (Saltzman, 1999). Though these seem like platitudes, they form a common thread with elements from Yang's later description of level design as a collaborative process and discipline. Designer and author Ed Byrne reflects this specifically in saying that level design is "the application of the team's ideas in a playable form" (Byrne, 2005). Here, Byrne reflects what Romero and Wilbur express about level design's role in the game design process, that a key element of a level designer's job is coordinating their work with that of teammates from multiple other disciplines.

Beyond teamwork though, Byrne is alluding to other less tangible elements of a game, invoking of the phrase "playable form". Designers John Fiel and Marc Scattergood attempt to do the same with their definition: "level designers don't create the models or textures or characters or even the source code of a game, but by arranging these elements piece by piece, they create fun" (2005). Fiel and Scattergood tap into the same separation of disciplines described by Yang but identify the role of the level designer as arranging those disciplines' output in a game environment to create a spectrum of emotional experiences.

The elements of "level" identified earlier in this article were many, but appropriately so. From an operational standpoint, levels embody a number of gameplay experiences that share common features such as space, theme, narrative (embedded, emergent or otherwise) and player interaction. Despite existing as data within game software, they are also a vehicle through which a designer may deliver an experience to a player. Byrne alluded to this as "playable form", and Fiel and Scattergood invoked "fun" – to which later writers may amend to include the host of emotions we now know games can achieve. Anna Anthropy, who was described previously as referring to levels and scenes as a means to develop the "verbs" of gameplay, likewise describes level design as the arrangement of game objects to create experiences of various types for players (Anthropy & Clarke, 2014). Designer and author Rudolf Kremers speaks even more directly to the concept of emotion and game levels by arguing that game levels can make a bad game design seem better (Kremers, 2009). He calls level design "applied game design", in that levels contain the technical implementation of art assets, sound, code and other software-driven processes, but also in how the level is the crystallization of a designer's experience goals (Lemarchand, 2021).

Level designers and scholars with backgrounds in architecture offer perhaps the most comprehensive expressions of how the composition of space in game levels molds player experience. Architectural designer and game design writer Sarah Bonser argues that this is because the disciplines of architecture and level design are both concerned with building emotionally meaningful space, and can greatly inform one another (Bonser, 2020). Building on Kremers, the book An Architectural Approach to Level Design offers the definition: "level design is the thoughtful execution of gameplay into gamespace for a player to dwell in" (Totten, 2019). This definition hits several important points: it integrates the ideas of Kremers and others who articulate that game levels are implementations of a game's rules, but puts the designer's focus on player experience. It offers the idea that level construction is an undertaking in creating spaces where players may "dwell", recalling Heidegger's description of dwelling as finding an "existential foothold" (Heidegger, 1971). This also brings to mind Norberg-Schulz's assertions that spaces allow occupants to dwell when they help them orient themselves and feel a sense of connection to the space (Norberg-Schulz, 1979). Miriam Bellard, a level designer with a background in both architecture and film, describes level design as "spatial cinematography" (Bellard, 2019). Her approach involves composing 3D environments to create compelling shots on the player's 2D screen, making space interesting to move through, and having an awareness of how space is experienced over time; mirroring Nitsche, Jørgensen and Mueller, as well as the ideas of connection and orientation. Both Bellard's and Architectural Approach's definitions go beyond the "building" or "arranging" of other definitions to argue that level design is not a process undertaken lightly, or simply one that stops at a designer's knowledge of the software. Instead, the "thoughtful execution" mirrors the highly collaborative practice of architecture: in which the output of multiple technical and artistic disciplines come together in built environments that connect occupants to experiential, social or even spiritual ideas beyond the building itself (Fazio et al., 2008).

Conclusion: Level Design Today

As Robert Yang argued, level design's understanding in the industry is weighted heavily towards the design of 3D landscapes and architectural spaces interacted with through an avatar, due to trends in commercial games, but other "traditions" of level design exist with equally rich aesthetic qualities. Level design is not solely a digital process, with precedents for what we understand as game levels existing in the very earliest games, physical sports and cultural works. It is also not a process that relies solely on the process of level editing software or as simply an outgrowth of game design. It is a process geared, in many ways, like real-world architecture, that creates experiences for players through the articulation of spaces and organization of interactive elements.

Level designers' tools reflect this player-centric focus. Many begin with hand-drawn maps on graph paper or other non-digital prototyping tools to test their ideas by playing them as early as possible. Others create diagrams or flow charts designed to trace the mental processes that a player in a level might use to progress, or the "beat chart", which lists moments of interest in a level. Designers that prototype in 3D create "gray box" levels (alternately called "white boxes" or "blockmeshes" depending on the studio), which feature large masses of untextured level geometry with no environment artwork. These draft levels allow designers to play and iterate on their work before the level is deemed engaging enough for beautification with polished visuals.

The care and attention that level designers put into their work, along with the quickly expanding wealth of literature on level design in the games industry, invite additional dedicated study beyond "game design" itself. While concepts like "game space" and "gameworlds" exist, they offer more generalized looks at game worlds based on their relation to the game's general interactivity or interface, rather than as objets d'art in their own right.

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Author Information

Christopher Totten is the Program Coordinator of Kent State University's Animation Game Design program and the founder of Pie For Breakfast Studios, an award-winning Northeast Ohio indie game company that explores the intersections of games and the arts. He has done work as an artist, animator, level designer and project manager in the game industry. He is also the author of An Architectural Approach to Level Design and editor of Level Design: Processes and Experiences. Chris is a co-founder of the Smithsonian American Art Museum Indie Arcade and GameFest Akron at the Akron Art Museum.

Citation Information

Totten, C. (2022). Level Design. In Grabarczyk, P. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ludic Terms (Spring 2022 Edition). URL: https://eolt.org/articles/level-design

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