Level design is one of the core elements of game development. Understanding your goals and basic principles is crucial in creating a great experience for players. Here’re a few tips for beginners from Grant Morgan, an indie dev working on an untitled project and game design critic focusing on dialogue and level design.

Naughty Dog’s Lead Designer Arnaldo Licea discusses how the flooded mall level was created for The Last of Us Part II.

Brett Johnson, who designed levels for the original Half-Life, has shared a few prototypes of the game. It’s not only a good chance to see how the project initially looked but also how “Quake-ish” it was.

How do you make new elements in a match-3 game? And how do you create levels and work with analytics? Aleksandr Shilyaev, lead game designer at Playrix, explains how the studio addressed these challenges while working on its hit title Gardenscapes.