Read this tutorial that walks through 11 steps to planning and designing a video game level. Try following the steps and creating your own level ideas.

Career

Learn more about game level design.

Enroll in an animation class at your school or look for tutorials online to start creating some of your own projects.

Education

Take a class in animation.

Get started with these tutorials on Khan Academy and teach yourself how to code. Regardless of whether you pursue programming, understanding coding concepts will help you in any field.

Skills

Teach yourself how to code.

Video Game Designers

Design core features of video games. Specify innovative game and role-play mechanics, story lines, and character biographies. Create and maintain design documentation. Guide and collaborate with production staff to produce games as designed.

Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Artistic

Second Interest High-Point

Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Enterprising

Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Conventional

Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Investigative

First Interest High-Point

Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Realistic

Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Social

Third Interest High-Point

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Miscellaneous Computer Occupations

Computer Occupations, All Other

Computer and Mathematical Occupations

Computer Occupations

Review or evaluate competitive products, film, music, television, and other art forms to generate new game design ideas.

Provide test specifications to quality assurance staff.

Keep abreast of game design technology and techniques, industry trends, or audience interests, reactions, and needs by reviewing current literature, talking with colleagues, participating in educational programs, attending meetings or workshops, or participating in professional organizations or conferences.

Create gameplay test plans for internal and external test groups.

Provide feedback to designers and other colleagues regarding game design features.

Balance and adjust gameplay experiences to ensure the critical and commercial success of the product.

Write or supervise the writing of game text and dialogue.

Solicit, obtain, and integrate feedback from design and technical staff into original game design.

Provide feedback to production staff regarding technical game qualities or adherence to original design.

Prepare two-dimensional concept layouts or three-dimensional mock-ups.

Present new game design concepts to management and technical colleagues, including artists, animators, and programmers.

Prepare and revise initial game sketches using two- and three-dimensional graphical design software.

Oversee gameplay testing to ensure intended gaming experience and game adherence to original vision.

Guide design discussions between development teams.

Devise missions, challenges, or puzzles to be encountered in game play.

Develop and maintain design level documentation, including mechanics, guidelines, and mission outlines.

Determine supplementary virtual features, such as currency, item catalog, menu design, and audio direction.

Create gameplay prototypes for presentation to creative and technical staff and management.

Create and manage documentation, production schedules, prototyping goals, and communication plans in collaboration with production staff.

Consult with multiple stakeholders to define requirements and implement online features.

Conduct regular design reviews throughout the game development process.

Collaborate with artists to achieve appropriate visual style.

Document all aspects of formal game design, using mock-up screenshots, sample menu layouts, gameplay flowcharts, and other graphical devices.

Create core game features including storylines, role-play mechanics, and character biographies for a new video game or game franchise.

Audioconferencing systems

Computer data input scanners

Desktop computers

Laptop computers

Personal computers

Smart phones

Tablet computers

Video gaming equipment

3D graphic design software

ActionScript

Adobe Systems Adobe ActionScript

Adobe Systems Adobe After Effects

Adobe Systems Adobe AfterEffects

Adobe Systems Adobe Creative Suite

Adobe Systems Adobe Flash

Adobe Systems Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Systems Adobe Photoshop

Advanced business application programming ABAP

Atlassian JIRA

Autodesk 3ds Max

Autodesk Maya

Autodesk Scaleform

Balsamiq Studios Balsamiq Mockups

Blackboard

C for Graphics cg

Extensible markup language XML

Graphical user interfaces GUI

Hypertext markup language HTML

JavaScript

Job control language JCL

Linux

Microsoft DirectX

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Expression Blend

Microsoft High Level Shader Language HLSL

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft Project

Microsoft Visio

Microsoft Visual C#

Microsoft Word

MySQL

Objective C

OpenGL

Oracle Java

Perforce Helix software

Perforce software

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

Practical extraction and reporting language Perl

Python

Ruby on Rails

Scheme

Simple DirectMedia Layer SDL

Sound development software

Structured query language SQL

Unity Technologies Unity

Virtual Battlespace 2 VBS2

Level Designer

In New York City, the Roadtrippers interview Mariette DiChristina, Editor-in-Chief of Scientific American. Later, the team meets Vicki Smith, a game designer at Vicarious Visions who forged a path in video games after feeling unfulfilled as an engineer. 

Be Well-Rounded

Of my many jobs, this is by far my favorite job. I was telling my parents the other day. I basically get to go into work and build castles in the sky. >> So did you always have an interest in video games? What were you like as a kid? >> I always did love video games. I didn't really get into the idea of making them until relatively recently. But yeah, no, I was definitely a gamer as a kid. >> What was your end goal? Did you have one in particular? >> I wanted to make comic books. Writing and drawing that's what I mostly wanted to do. And you know it's not every, well okay. It wasn't my parents' dream that their daughter would become a comic book artist and writer. As much as they loved me and encouraged me they were like we're not going to pay for a humanities degree. They said we will pay for a science or engineering degree, but not otherwise. So I went and I got my degree in electrical engineering. And I basically, I, it's a really good career but I had that sort of creative side, and essentially got really bored. Ended up quitting, and trying a bunch of different things, I got my masters in interactive technology, which is a euphemism for a masters in video game design. And then I got really lucky and VV recruited me. So now I get to work here. >> What was that like when you had this passion and you had this drive and you went down that path, you followed the science. Did you're perspective of science kind of come around? >> Absolutely, it did. Kind of like when you're in sports and all you wanna do is play football, right? And you do not want to do the jumping jacks or the push ups or the weight lifting. >> Wow that's a good analogy. >> But in the end, I was really, really glad I did. Because if you don't do the push ups, you don't get to play the game. And because of my technical background, because I had to teach myself how to code, I had to teach myself how to work with computers. I mean that gave me such an advantage when it came to working video games. And this is the thing, I think American culture, we have this whole chase your dream thing. And so we tell somebody okay if you're really good at this, you should just concentrate on this. You should just you know pour your soul into acting, or writing, and leave everything else behind. And I kind of think that's a really unbalanced way to go about things. I mean even if you say you're a writer, and you want to write the great American novel, so you completely blow off Math and science. But if you don't understand math and science you're not gonna understand technology. And if you don't understand technology there's no way you can understand the world we live in today. And if you don't understand the world we live in today, how are you gonna write the great American novel? If you really want to be a writer, you should chase that dream. But you shouldn't neglect math and science. Just like if you're really into math and science, you should still read the Shakespeare because that's gonna round you out and that's what's gonna allow you to bring creativity into your math and science work. I mean, the artists here, I'm such a fan girl when I walk around the office and I look at people's work. And they do 3D modeling and they do just stunning environments. Really beautiful characters and beautiful animation and they're working on computers, they're working with extremely sophisticated technology. But obviously if they hadn't worked on art, they wouldn't have been able to apply that technology in such a beautiful way. >> So were any of the seeds of your comic books still in there? >> I get to work here now. And here, they give me a level, and they say okay, at the beginning of the level, the game is at state a, and by the end of the level we want to be at state b. But in the meantime, make a little story out of your level. So I get to make essentially three dimensional, interactive comic books now. >> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> I get to build a castle and figure out, okay in the beginning, you're gonna be welcomed by Count Dracula and then he's gonna grab your boyfriend and drag him to the top of the tower and you have to fight these monsters in this order and solve this puzzle. It's my story. It's my level. So I'm not actually in comic books, but I kind of gotta step up I thought. >> So, our final question may seem a little huge, but what advice would you give to the three of us and other people around our age who are just getting started? >> I knew a priest once, I was in college and I was drifting and, he told me that it's impossible to steer a bike that's standing still so just go for things. And then the weird part about doing that is that you get deflected in the direction you want to go. I did engineering. And then when I changed careers, that deflected me again into video games. And I think sometimes you just need to stop wondering what you wanna do with your life and go out and do something. If you move forward, you'll find your way because your way will be informed by who you are, what you want. Just, you're life's a game. You just have to play it. 

Interview

It wasn't my parents dream that their daughter would become a comic book artist and writer. As much as they loved me, encouraged me, they were like we're not going to pay for a humanities degree. So I went and I got my degree in electrical engineering, and basically, it's a really good career. But I had that sort of creative side and essentially got really bored, ended up quitting and trying a bunch of different things. >> What was that like when you had this passion, and you had this drive and you went down that path, you followed the science, did your perspective of science kinda come around? >> Absolutely, it did. Kinda like when you're in sports and all you wanna do is play football, right? And you do not want to do the jumping jacks or the push-ups or the weight lifting. >> That's a good analogy [LAUGH]. >> [LAUGH] >> In the end I was really, really glad I did because if you don't do the push-ups you don't get to play the game. And because of my technical background, because I had to teach myself how to code, I had to teach myself how to work with computers, I mean, that gave me such an advantage when it came to working in video games. So now I get to work here. 

Vicki Smith Highlight

Of my many jobs this is by far my favorite job. I was telling my parents the other day. I basically get to go into work and build castles in the sky. >> So did you always have an interest in video games? What were you like as a kid? >> I always did love video games. I didn't really get into the idea of making them until relatively recently, but yeah. I was definitely a gamer as a kid. >> What was your end goal? Did you have one in particular? >> I wanted to make comic books. Writing and drawing. That's what I mostly wanted to do. And you know, it's not every, well okay. It wasn't my parents' dream that their daughter would become a comic book artist and writer. As much as they loved to encourage me they were like we're not going to pay for a humanities degree. They said, you know, we will pay for a science or engineering degree but not otherwise. So, I went and I got my degree in electrical engineering and I basically, I had a really good career but I had that sort of creative side and essentially got really bored. Ended up quitting and trying a bunch of different things. 

Exploration

Pressure

I Got Really Bored

So any of the seeds of your comic book still in there? >> I get to work here now, and here they give me a level and they say, okay, at the beginning of a level the game is at state A and by the end of a level we want to be in state B, but in the meantime make a little story out of your level. So I get to make essentially three dimensional interactive comic books now. I get to go to castle and figure out, okay in the beginning we're gonna welcomed by Count Dracula and then he's gonna grab your boyfriend and drag him to the top of the tower and you have to fight these monsters in this order and solve this puzzle, it's my story, it's my level. >> [LAUGH] >> So, I'm not actually in comic books, but I kinda gotta step up I thought. 

Fulfillment

A Step Up

This is the thing, I think American culture has sort of we have this whole chase your dream thing and so we tell somebody okay if you're really good at this you should just concentrate on this. You should just pour your soul into acting or into writing and leave everything else behind. And I kinda think that's a really unbalanced way to go about things. Even if you say you're a writer, and you want to write the great American novel, so you completely blow off math and science. But if you don't understand math and science, you're not gonna understand technology. And if you don't understand technology, there's no way you can understand the world we live in today. And if you don't understand the world we live in today, how are you gonna write the great American novel? If you really want to be a writer, you should chase that dream, but you shouldn't neglect math and science. Just like if you're really into math and science, you should still read the Shakespeare because that's gonna round you out and it's gonna be allow you to bring creativity to your math and science work. I mean the artists here, I'm such a fan girl when I walk around the office and I look at people's work and they do 3D modeling and they do just stunning environments. Really beautiful characters, and beautiful animation, and they are working on computers, they are work with extremely sophisticated technology. But, obviously if they hadn't worked with art they wouldn't have been able to apply that technology in such a beautiful way. 

Culture

Individualism

Round Yourself Out

I got my Masters in interactive technology, which is a euphemism for a Masters in video game design. And then I got really lucky and Vivendi recruited me, so now I get to work here. >> What was that like when you had this passion and you had this drive and you went down that path, you followed the science, did your perspective of science kind of come around? >> Absolutely, it did. Kinda like when you are in sports and all you want to do is play football, right? And you do not want to do the jumping jacks or the push ups or the weightlifting. >> Wow, that's a good analogy. [LAUGH] >> But in the end, I'm really really glad I did. Because if you don't do the push-ups you don't get to play the game. And because of my technical background because I had to teach myself how to code, I had to teach myself how to work with computers, I mean that gave me such an advantage when it came to our work in video games. 

Hard Work

If You Don't Do The Push Ups, You Can't Play The Game

I knew a priest once who, I was in college and I was drifting, and he told me that it's impossible to steer a bike that's standing still. So just go for things. And then the weird part about doing that is that you get deflected in the direction you want to go. I did engineering, and then when I changed careers, that deflected me again into video games. And I think sometimes you just need to stop wondering what you wanna do with your life and go out and do something. If you move forward, you'll find your way because your way will be informed by who you are, what you like. Life's a game right, you have to play it. 

Go Out & Do Something

I can't cite it but there was a study recently, I think in Sweden, where they put all those like sucker things, electrodes on your head and they watched a lot of people playing video games to try to identify scientifically, what is most fun about video games. The results were surprising. They found that people had most fun when they did fail. When they did something wrong, they're like okay, now it's on. [LAUGH] If you try five times and then on the sixth time you get it, that feeling is so great. [LAUGH] That's the moment. And this is something, also, that the education system is not good at. It should be the same thing. If you don't get something the first time. There should be some mechanism to say okay, try it again. The thing with failure is, if you try the same way every time, you're just gonna get frustrated and you're gonna throw the controller across the room and quit the game. And we never want you to quit the game. When you fail, you do need to change your approach. 

Failure

Failure & Changing Your Approach

I was working in servers, and what happens when you're working in computers is that it takes about two years to come up with your new computer that you put out on the market, and then you sort of start a new one. And, so there was this moment, we had finished a computer, we shipped it, and I realized it's pretty much now or never cuz otherwise, I'll be sort of sucked in for another two years. And I wanted, I was 22 years old, I wanted to go and have adventures. So, I volunteered with an oversees program, a little bit like the Peace Corps. And I decided, I'm 22, if I ever gonna do this sort of thing, I need to do it now. So I quit and went to Africa for a couple years. There's nothing really quite like travel to change your perspective on things. And, that also was another place that taught me how much I appreciated technology, and science, and math. You never really realize what it's like until you're surrounded by a society that really doesn't have those same benefits. I was terrified. I remember at the airport, I was actually crying when I left my parents. I had been working as an engineer for, I think, four years, then. And I'd enjoyed it, I mean, and the money is pretty good actually in computer engineering. But I suddenly realized it had been four years and I hadn't changed at all, if you know what I mean. I hadn't really learned much. I learned a lot of job skills, but I didn't want time to sort of pass and for nothing to have changed in my life. And so, I just had to hold my breath and jump in. 

Experience

Travel & Perspective

I think it's helpful to understand that we all do live in a very competitive environment. And having math and science skills, I don't know if kids understand how much of an edge that gives them in a very competitive world. And frankly, in a world that gets more competitive all the time. It still is kinda mind boggling to me, when I would talk to my kids and they would not see any point in math and science and computers. I'm like, this is 2012, where you're living in the computer age, it's almost insane to me. You're gonna have a really hard time as the world changes if you don't pick up some of these skills. Especially if you have a goal like game design, like I have, there's a lot of people who work here who have known since they were ten, I'm gonna make games. And I think they had a much easier time doing the push ups because they knew that's what they wanted and so they developed the skills they needed to get there. I mean if you know what you wanna do, just recognize that the more math and science you have, the easier time you're gonna have getting to that goal. 

You're Living in the Computer Age

My mom is 65 and she's decided she's going to learn how to read and write Chinese. She's like, I'm retired I have plenty of time and it might take her until she's 100 to get there whereas a kid might be able to learn it in five years. The brain is just one big muscle and the more you exercise it the better you'll be at all sorts of things. One of the things that I think we don't tell kids enough is that even if you don't use math, math just makes you smarter. It makes you better at logical reasoning. It makes you better at problem solving. It's hard to do so it makes your brain smarter. And the smarter you are, the more you can learn later on. So if you want to learn how to do really good comic books, if you don't, do the math [LAUGH] 

Do The  Math

It wasn't my parents' dream that their daughter would become a comic book artist and writer. And it's not like they wanted to crush me, they were like science and technology are nothing. But he basically said, look, we love you and we want you to be as free as possible. We want you to have the world at your fingertips, to have as many options as you can have by the time you graduate from college. And then if you want to be a comic book artist at the end of that, that's fine, but also if you want to go and say, do a high tech job and make a lot of money, so that if you save up, you can go to Africa for three years, we want you to have that option too. It sounds like you guys were a lot like me in college that you're still trying to work out exactly what you wanna do. And I didn't figure out exactly what I wanted to do till I was 32, so, hey! [LAUGH] But if you're in that state, you don't wanna just drift. You don't want to open up as many roads as you can, you want to maximize your options. 

Opportunity

Maximize Your Options

I found the things that were most important to me. You know, my faith, my family and those things I put away in a box and I wasn't gonna touch, and for the rest of it, I just dove in. And I think sometimes you just need to stop wondering what you want to do with your life, and go out and do something. If you find yourself bored, stop doing whatever is boring you. If you find yourself aimless, choose a direction and go in that direction. And you know, your own spirit is going to turn you in the right way. But you know, don't let yourself get caught up with angst cause it's a waste of time. You know, you've got a hundred years to live, right? And you don't want to waste any of it. 

Just Go Out & Do Something

Did you like math and science in school at all when you were growing up? >> I did not like, I mean, I wouldn't say I liked it now. I did it and I did it relatively well because my parents sort of insisted on that. The first time I brought home even a test that wasn't an A, that would mean tutoring after school for hours everyday until I got the A. That was just sort of the way my parents were. And, again, at the time vehemently resented it, but it really paid off in the end. Sometimes you just have to work on that thing that you're not good at. >> So. >> So yeah I get I was a little resentful of my parents at the time, but I'm really glad now that they sort of made me do that. 

Vicki Smith

Level Designer

Videos

Vicki Smith

Milestones

Education

Career

Career Roadmap

My work combines:

My work combines:

Design

Science

Being Creative