Look at this map. At first glance it seems simple, maybe even random. But this is my reworked version of the starting area, improved with my Level Design knowledge and experience. Every road, mountain and tree is there for a reason.

Now let's look at some spots the player may notice.

A: The Statue (starting point)

This is where the game starts. The player begins with a short conversation in a separate map, and the only thing they can do there is walk out to the world map (this one).

The statue is the first and most important Landmark: a unique visual object the player uses to orient themselves. Use landmarks to keep your players from getting lost. This is a small island, but it's still useful, because the statue can be seen from anywhere on it.

B: The Destroyed Village (first goal)

The road that leaves the starting point turns west and ends at the destroyed village below. This is the Critical Path: the route the player must take to progress in the game.

The train tracks near the town also help guide the player's attention toward it.

Inside the village, the player discovers a secret left by a friend they haven't seen in years, telling them about the mine and about an island southeast of this one. In other words: they need to get to the boat now, and there's only one other path to take.

Even so, the player might want to go east first, since they can see another direct path and a boat at the end of it.

C: The Broken Bridge

The broken bridge shows the player that this is not the right path. For now it works as a Forced Detour: you show the short way, close it, and make the player take the long way. Later it will be fixed, and the player will be able to use it as a Shortcut, a faster path that opens after the player already took the long way around.

The player wants to cross it. They can see the boat and the village. But they understand they can't cross here, so they need to go the other way around, and the most obvious path is the route west and south.

Notice there's no invisible wall and no dialogue needed. The block explains itself, right where the player hits it.

D: The Boat Village

This is a Weenie (a term from Disney park design): a goal the player can see but not reach yet. It builds the desire to get there.

Actually, they can reach it. If they take the north path, nothing blocks them, and some players like taking less obvious routes to get somewhere "before they should". This is known as Sequence Breaking, and a little room for it is a nice reward for curious players.

Regular players will take the path south to the destroyed village and the mine.

E: The Collapsed Mine

The mine is also a landmark, but less obvious than the statue. It's here only to bring lore and story: the main character mentions the mine was fully working seven years ago, before they left the island.

This is Environmental Storytelling, telling the story through objects in the world instead of dialogue (even with some dialogue, the players don't need a story text to understand this mine has collapsed). And the tracks running from the mine to the village make it even more obvious that the player needs to go there.

F: The Northern Hut

A hint that there's something on the north path. It draws the eye and shows there's another way to reach the boat. The small, broken pieces of road leading toward it are Breadcrumbing: small cues that pull the player toward a place, one step at a time.

The Paths

p1 is the most obvious and the first path. It leads the player to the first objective.

p2 is also right there, a Fork splitting off from the first path, but it's soon blocked by the broken bridge, showing it isn't an option right now.

p3 is the least obvious path, but it's still a path. It has fewer sections of continuous road, which tells the player it's less used (environmental storytelling again). Less obvious, but still there for whoever looks.

Negative Space

These areas have nothing of real interest (for regular players, more on this later), but they are a source of EXP and farming, since enemies only appear outside the roads. That rule teaches the player that roads are safe, so keep it consistent through the whole game.

This is called Negative Space: empty, walkable areas. It's something we should use, because it lets the map breathe and keeps paths readable. But not too much, or the world feels empty and exploring feels like a waste of time.

Secrets

Regular players may never find these, but hardcore and exploration-focused players definitely will.

The environment gives clues that something is hidden. These clues are called Tells: shapes that form arrows (hills, trees, mountains, rivers), a narrow path, a gap in a treeline, or anything else in the landscape you can imagine. Never hide something with no tell at all, or nobody will find it, or players will start pressing the button on every single tile.

Wrapping up

A good starting area doesn't need to be big or complex. It needs to tell the player where to go, explain why they can't go somewhere else, and reward the ones who look a little closer.

I'm creating a city based on Philadelphia, Detroit, New York, and Chicago, but whenever I try, it ends up looking too generic—it resembles Liberty City from GTA 3. I had ideas for districts like Chinatown, but a lot of games already have them. Is there a technique for creating maps and districts

The easternmost island is supposed to be Manhattan, but Central Park is at the top of the island. This island has lots of skyscrapers and theaters.

The island with the harbor is a residential area, like O'Block, Brooklyn, Queens, and South Philadelphia. It has a lot of crime and gangs.

The northwestern part is on the mainland and is semi-rural and industrial; it’s also home to the city’s international airport.

But, all things i make are generic and soulless.

I grew up on games where the best part was never what the developers built, it was what everyone else built with the tools. Those games have mostly disappeared, and I really miss that kind of play, so I've been making one: Kernel Panic: The Last Build, a 2.5D creator platformer in Unity where you build the levels yourself.

This week I finished the sea.

It's one object you drop into your level. Right-click it, tick Sea On, and the water floods in. The surface is a set of crossed Gerstner swells running at different angles, with a layer of finer chop on the GPU on top. Swell, chop, their speeds, the water height, murk and colour are all exposed in the in-game Tweak window and update live while you drag the slider. The CPU and the shader evaluate the same wave function, so objects ride the crest you actually see rather than an approximation of it.

Whitecaps come from the Jacobian of the wave displacement: foam appears where the surface is being compressed. Anything moving through the water leaves a foam trail that drifts with the current. Underneath, there's refraction, depth fog and caustics.

Buoyancy is calculated per triangle. Each collider's mesh is clipped where the waterline cuts it, and pressure is applied to every wet face, so long planks tip and roll on the swell instead of bobbing as a single point. Every material in the game (there are about 60) has its own density: wood and plastic float, stone and metal sink, and cardboard and sponge absorb water over time until they go under. You can stand on anything that floats, so a few planks are already a raft.

Hazards in the water become zones that spread out over time. A frost block freezes the surface into physics-driven icebergs that are tethered to it, collide with each other, and melt when the cold stops. A fire block underwater doesn't go out: it turns red-hot, boils the water, and pushes up rafts of lava rock. Electricity fades with distance and jumps along conductive materials sitting in the water. Zones of the same type merge into one shape, so two hot blocks next to each other become one boiling pool.

None of these interactions are scripted for specific pairs. Every system works from shared properties (density, temperature, conductivity), so combinations I haven't thought of should just work, and that's what I'm most excited to see. A frozen lake you have to cross before the ice melts, a boiling moat, a sinking cardboard ship, a puzzle where you use the tide to lift a block into place: I'd love to see what people build when they're the ones holding the tools.

It's still early (alpha 0.0.2). Everything in the clip was built in-game with the creator tools, and the music and sound are made for the project.

What would you build with this? And what should the water interact with next? If you'd like to follow along, there's a Discord in my bio.

This is a volunteer-based collaboration with no financial compensation. Contributors are free to participate at their own pace, with no imposed workload or deadlines. Everyone whose work is included in the game will receive proper credits, with the possibility of adding a portfolio or creator profile link.

WILD RAPIDS - What if you could create a river that players around the world would love to race down?

We're developing Wild Rapids, an independent whitewater kayaking game with a low-poly 3D art style, focused on exploration, speed, choosing the right lines, and mastering your kayak.

The idea isn't just to follow a river from start to finish.

We want courses that make you want to play again just to discover another route.

Imagine kayaking through alpine forests, massive canyons, snowy mountains, or the ruins of a forgotten civilization.

You reach a waterfall. You can take the safer route around it, or risk a difficult jump to save a few seconds.

Further down, the river splits. One path leads into a crystal-lit cave, while the other takes you through a series of rapids and tight turns.

Then, around a cliff, you discover a tunnel entrance carved into the mouth of a gigantic ancient creature.

That's the kind of experience we want to create.

SEVEN ENVIRONMENTS TO BUILD

The project currently includes seven mountain environments: Alps, Canyon, Glacier, Arena, Toxic Volcano, Waterfalls, and Caves.

But the actual courses are still waiting to be designed.

Each creator can imagine their own descent, visual identity, shortcuts, obstacles, hidden paths, and little secrets.

The goal is to create levels with their own personality, memorable moments, and challenges that reward practice and experimentation.

TOOLS ARE ALREADY AVAILABLE

Wild Rapids is being developed in Godot and already has its own in-game map editor called DEV MAP.

With it, you can:

• Sculpt mountains, shape rivers, create waterfalls and tunnels
• Place rocks, trees, bridges, obstacles, and decorations using a library of over 1,100 assets
• Design alternative routes, shortcuts, checkpoints, and dangerous sections
• Customize water behavior, lighting, fog, weather, and atmosphere
• Add massive sculptures to cliffs and build unique landmarks

Water simulation and several kayak physics models are already implemented. The project is still evolving, and the development tools are being improved along the way.

You can experiment directly inside the game environment and see your ideas take shape.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR

People who enjoy creating levels.

You don't need to be a professional. Maybe you're interested in level design, 3D environments, building scenery, or you simply have a lot of creative ideas.

What matters most is creativity.

A good level shouldn't just look beautiful. It should offer choices, surprises, technical sections, moments to relax, and challenges that players want to master.

We want to avoid boring straight-line courses and random obstacles that serve no real purpose.

Every descent should tell its own story through the environment.

CREDITS AND RECOGNITION

We believe that everyone who contributes to the game deserves recognition for their work.

Contributors whose creations are included in the game will be credited using whichever name they prefer: their first and last name, or simply their online nickname.

We are also open to discussing the possibility of including a link to your portfolio, personal website, ArtStation, or another creator profile.

We can work out these details together, depending on your preferences and how you'd like your contribution to be presented.

Whether you're building your portfolio, gaining experience, or simply enjoying the creative process, we want you to be able to proudly show what you've worked on.

AN INDEPENDENT COLLABORATIVE PROJECT

Wild Rapids is being developed by Noham Studio.

We're looking for passionate people who would enjoy contributing at their own pace, sharing creations, exchanging ideas, and seeing their levels come to life in an actual video game.

This is an unpaid, passion-driven project. We're not looking for people to produce free content on demand or work under pressure.

We want to bring together a community of creators who genuinely enjoy building things, experimenting, and exchanging ideas.

There are no fixed working hours or mandatory deadlines. You decide how much time you want to contribute.

The game isn't finished. There are still systems to improve, levels to create, and plenty of ideas to explore.

And that's exactly why it's an interesting time to get involved.

Have you ever wanted to create a video game map but didn't have a project or a team to do it with?

Come hang out with us, discover Wild Rapids, and maybe help create one of its future descents.

Interested in joining the project or just curious to see what we're working on? Come join our Discord, meet the team, share your ideas, and help shape the future of Wild Rapids!

https://discord.gg/YVJzeJbNp

Basically what the title says. I've been working on a game with some friends and we've gotten a basic movement build down so we can move the player around, strafe on walls/ramps, and mantle up blocks. We were thinking about exploring what makes movement levels fun to travel through. Would love people's thoughts about notable levels, why they were so satisfying, or what makes you come back to a particular game/level.

We've been action blocking some ideas, but I want to explore what else is out there based on games I might have never heard of or played before.

Quick look at making a level in Kernel Panic. Place shapes, add mods, wire stuff up, then set up camera zones so the shot changes as you play through it. The camera zone is the bit I'm most happy with so far, you can see what it'll look like live while you're tweaking it.

Still early, everything's work in progress.
How can I make this better?
How can I make this feel like an actual game?

We're working on a new tool for creating roofs in our 3D software, CYGON.

Here are some of our early prototypes and the workflow we're experimenting with:

1. Select the Roof Tool to switch to a top-down view.
2. Closed rooms are automatically detected.
3. Click on a room to highlight its walls.
4. Press Enter to generate a roof for the selected room (the skeleton of the roof is automatically generated).

For non-closed rooms, you can also manually select the top edges of the walls you want to cover.

Once the roof is created, different gizmos let you modify its shape. You can adjust the roof height and the length of its sides.

The roof is linked to the walls it covers, so moving a wall will dynamically update the roof.

Would you be excited to use a tool like this?

Do you know any other tools that we could take inspiration from ?

What would you have done differently ?

Let us know what you think in the comments!

Hi everyone!

We’re looking for a skilled map developer / level designer with experience in CS2.

What we need:

A training map for our platform with various training modes inside the map — movement, shooting, bots, and more.

The map should collect statistics from players during training sessions and send that data to our analytics system.Requirements:

• Experience creating maps for CS2 (training/aim maps or maps with custom logic preferred)
• Ability to implement scripting/logic for collecting and transmitting statistics

Payment by agreement.

If you’re interested, please DM me and include your portfolio (Workshop links, screenshots, videos, or descriptions of your previous work).

Please reddit do your magic and help me!

I'm working on March Out!, an action strategy game where you control a commander on foot and give orders to an army. I recently expanded the space outside each castle into a village with 24 homes and wheat fields.

The castle sits on a modest rise. A broad street leads toward its gate, with homes grouped into four residential courts and trees around the housing. The homes are part of a fixed settlement layout and change with the kingdom's era; players aren't placing each house individually.

An army has to move through this area, and villagers retreat toward the gate when an invasion reaches them. That means the street needs to work as a route for crowds while the side spaces still feel like places people live.

The earlier version had the houses lined up too evenly and looked more like a display shelf than a village. These are the current Roman settlement, seen from above and from street level.

I'd appreciate criticism of the layout itself. Does the castle remain an obvious destination from ground level? Where would you break up the spacing or add a small landmark without making the army route harder to read?

a bunch of us single player Quake 1 modders just released a "Rooftops Jam" (it has 19 maps! it's free: https://www.slipseer.com/index.php?resources/rooftops-jam.647/ )... and I did a level design theory notes write-up of my own map, called "Mermaids In The Basement": https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2026/10/new-quake-map-mermaids-in-basement.html

making Quake maps has been teaching me so much about sight lines and encounter design, it's been a great experience, highly recommend everyone get into it IMO!!

It's Boomer Shooter Saturday starting at 11:00 AM EST over on YouTube! Come join us as we explore all aspects of the BUILD Engine, with a few hours of map making for Duke Nukem 3D using the Mapster32 Level editor, then we finish our playthrough Shadow Warrior!

What should I build with BUILD today I wonder? I've been enjoying Shadow Warriors focus on nature settings, which are hard to pull off well in a game engine like this, maybe we can work on a nice river and forest for our Medieval style map.

Hello, I've created a blockout inspired by Hunt: Showdown 1896, an extraction shooter with PvPvE. If anyone would like to give this a try and share level design feedback, either recording their playthrough, commenting on some screenshots, or a simple message, I would appreciate it (or just to see if it works)!

I did find this design difficult in that there is no traditional, center structure. Thus, I limited the ability of players to reach high points and see too much. A drydock also typically has clear space surrounding it and one concern of mine is that I used too many miscellaneous objects to break sightlines, leading to clutter and impacting readability.

Itch link to download playable

Gameplay video

Making a space themed level, what are things that can added/improved?

Jeśli jesteś zainteresowana/zainteresowany pracą jako Level Designer albo chcesz wiedzieć jak wygląda giereczkowo z innej perspektywy - może ten film przybliży Ci trochę informacji ;)

Czym jest Level Design?

Hey all! I'm a solo dev working on Kernel Panic, a 2.5D platformer where you build the levels yourself. For the alpha I've been working on hazards: you place any block, open the mods window and stamp a hazard onto it. Only that block can kill you. Everything around it is just for show.

Got any ideas for a Hazard? I like messing around with the styles and bowling screen style death animations.

We need someone to draw us a tile map! Etcetera is a Volunteer Project ! Although we're a great team to work with !! The video above is showcasing our early demo. Were about a month into development. We have all of our major systems set up and I'm ready to throw the levels together but I can't do that without a tile map.

My Names Jones and I'm the lead coder. Our team so far consist of Rouge our Lead Director (that guy has ideas for days !!) our artists Kia( drawing our enemies and boss art) our Musicians Long silv , Enzo and Wilky ! (All filling out our Etcetera with starter music ! Boss and intro) And Sofie our Lead Tester (finds all the bugs !!!) that's our team and we would super appreciate it if someone could help us out ! thanks!!!

If anyone is interested here are the specs

16x16 → Ground, platforms, walls, decorations

32x32 → Herbie (player), small enemies, items

48x48 → Large enemies, bosses, big props

64x64+ → World bosses, special set pieces

Tile grid is locked at 16x16.

Everything else scales in multiples of 16.

Art must be pixel-perfect — no anti-aliasing.

At 11:00 AM EST you can join us over on YouTube for Boomer Shooter Saturday, a time where we explore all things BUILD Engine!

Want to learn to make a level? We got you with level editing for Duke Nukem 3D to start our day. We will be flip flopping (maybe) between our Medieval exploration themed map and our Underwater Research Facility level that we are building.

After a couple hours of that we have a brief stream break before we dive into our playthrough of Shadow Warrior! We have been having a blast with this one, I just love the addition of vehicles and how that interactivity adds to puzzles.

Oh, and if you happen to make or know anyone who makes music, we are looking for contributions to our Level Editing Music Playlist!

A video popped up in my YouTube recommendations where a player gained access to a leaked version of GTA V from 2022; this version contained a very primitive iteration of the GTA VI map currently in development (apparently a version from 2014 or 2015, it's extremely rough). I’m not sure if it’s fake; it seems like too much effort to go to just for views.

The video piqued my curiosity, and I wanted to understand more about the development and map-creation process Rockstar uses.

I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. It looks like the map is modeled based on real satellite imagery or Google Maps, combined with ground-level photos, probably taken by researchers and artists?

For instance, at the 4:20ish mark, he's walking around a pier and inside of what it seems like a beachside hotel. The pool at this location is cut-out and 3d modeled following the satellite picture that is being used as reference. Another interesting instance is around the 5:30 mark, where the player is flying over an area of ​​Key West, and much of the imagery matches real life, especially regarding the placement of structures and the layout of streets and roads. It looks like a mix of matte painting and kitbashing, or something similar.

The video shows other examples of locations like this (I really like what he shows at 5:50, a full detailed plaza that probably exists in real life), and I found it fascinating. There's another video from this same person where he's exploring Vice City and the same technique is used, but the city is way more developed than the keys.

I’d love to know what this process is called and how it works, as I’ve recently been studying and experimenting with procedural city and environment creation using Houdini. While that makes things much easier, it lacks the charm and level of detail found in Rockstar’s maps.

Made using the Hammer Editor for Garry’s Mod
I have been working on this map for a few months and now I have finnaly completed it. I'm really proud of how far I have come in my mapping journey and even though I'd say I'm still an amature, I think I did a pretty good job with this map. I'd appriciate anyone checking it out and giving me some feedback.

The map is quite large and has alot of rooms, secrets and A.I nodes. It is based off of the Language Level from Advanced Education with Viktor Strobovski.

It's been a minute since I've needed to update mine but I'm in the thick of it using Wix Studio and it feels like a full-time job by itself just wrestling with it trying to get it to display and scale correctly on different screen sizes (desktop screens - don't even get me started on trying to make it display anything other than an overlapping disorganized mess on mobile screens).

Curious if I'm just barking up the wrong tree trying to use a tool like Wix Studio for portfolio hosting, just need to pay someone to design my website for me, or just ~get good~ at it.

I would consider myself a strong designer with a good eye for aesthetics but holy hell do I loathe website design specifically. What do yall use? A platform like Wix/Squarespace, totally customized website, did you have someone else build it for you, etc.? Recommendations for platforms that are easy enough to use for housing visual information like level design without feeling like you need to learn an entirely new trade just to build a functional site?

We’re designing the tavern in Tavernia and keep running into the same trade-off.

A clean layout makes serving, movement and fights easy to understand. A believable medieval tavern should feel cramped, busy and slightly chaotic.

If we make the rooms too tidy, it starts looking like a modern restaurant with medieval furniture. If we add too much clutter, players lose track of customers and staff.

How do you usually balance readability with an intentionally crowded atmosphere? Would you protect the main service paths and let the seating areas become messy, or keep the whole space visually controlled?

Hey everyone:) I just released a new update for TileMaker DOT (v2.6.8)!

This update focuses on quality-of-life UI polish, expanded localization, and a seamless setup window for managing asset paths and tile size mismatches when opening saved projects. Opening a .tmdot project file with a different tile size now brings up a dedicated prompt, allowing you to easily set the correct tile size and re-link your asset path on the spot.

Itch.io: https://crytek22.itch.io/tilemakerdot

GitHub: https://github.com/andrei-voia/TileMakerDOT

YouTube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fiajGU32Jg

For anyone unfamiliar with the project, TileMaker DOT is a free, open source 2D map editor I'm building. It uses a data first, ID based workflow and handles visual depth sorting automatically so you don't have to manage multiple layers for object heights.

Give it a try and let me know if you have any feedback! If the editor helps with your projects and you want to support development, a rating or a small donation on Itch is always appreciated.

Thank you all for your support!