Chapter 16 Exercises: Level Design Fundamentals

These exercises alternate between analytical work (reading other designers' levels) and design work (composing levels of your own). The analytical exercises sharpen your eye; the design exercises are the reps that build the muscle. Level design is a craft, and crafts are learned by doing.

Budget ten to fourteen hours across the full set. Exercises 1 through 3 can be done in a single focused session. Exercises 4 through 6 are the paper-prototyping work that constitutes your progressive project for this chapter. Exercises 7 through 11 deepen specific skills. Exercise 12 is the capstone self-assessment.

Exercise 1: Spatial Analysis of a Favorite Level (Analysis, 90 minutes)

Pick a level from a game you love. Not a whole game — one specific level. Half-Life 2's Ravenholm. Super Mario World 1-1. Dark Souls's Undead Burg. Celeste Chapter 3. Hollow Knight's Greenpath. Choose something specific enough that you can hold its geography in your head.

Play the level again, from start to end, with a notebook at hand. As you play, pause frequently and note:

  • What the designer is making you do right now (combat, exploration, puzzle, traversal, etc.)
  • Where your eye is drawn in any given space (and why — leading lines, lighting, contrast, movement)
  • What the level is teaching you, if anything
  • What the pacing feels like (intensity peaks and valleys)
  • Where the space is player-sized vs. intimidating vs. comforting
  • Any choke points, arenas, or vistas and what they accomplish

At the end, write a 600-900 word analysis of the level's design. Your analysis should answer:

  1. What is this level's dominant register (challenge, puzzle, story, emotional)?
  2. What is its structural type (linear, branching, open)?
  3. How is pacing managed? Sketch the intensity curve.
  4. What does the level teach, and how?
  5. What is the single most effective design choice in the level, and why does it work?

The goal is not to praise the level but to reverse-engineer the design decisions behind it. Treat the designer as an engineer whose work you are studying so you can steal techniques.

Exercise 2: Pacing Chart of a Recent Playthrough (Analysis, 45 minutes)

Play the first thirty to ninety minutes of a game you have not played before. Do not take notes during play — just play.

Immediately after, while the experience is fresh, draw a pacing chart on graph paper. The horizontal axis is your progression through the game (measured in minutes or landmarks). The vertical axis is emotional intensity (from low at the bottom to high at the top).

Plot your intensity as a curve. Mark specific moments on the curve: the first combat encounter, the first puzzle, the first vista, the first scripted moment, the first pause-to-look-around, the first frustration, the first flow state.

When you are done, look at the curve. Does it have clear peaks and valleys, or is it flat? Does the intensity rise monotonically, or does it oscillate? Where are the designer's deliberate release valves? Where are the designer's deliberate tension-builders?

Write a 300-500 word reflection on what the pacing chart reveals about the game's level design. If the game's pacing is good, articulate the pattern. If it is bad, articulate why.

This exercise is the reading exercise for the core tool you will use in Exercise 4. Doing it on someone else's game first is how you learn to see the tool in action.

Exercise 3: Wayfinding Audit (Analysis, 60 minutes)

Play one level from a game of your choosing. As you play, note every moment when you:

  • Were certain where to go
  • Were uncertain and had to pause
  • Got lost
  • Found an unexpected optional path
  • Saw something in the distance that you wanted to reach

For each of these moments, describe what the space did (or failed to do) to produce the outcome. If you were certain where to go, what signifier was doing the work? Lighting? Leading lines? Contrast? A visual landmark? If you got lost, what was missing? If you saw something in the distance, how did the composition of the space pull your eye there?

Write up your findings as a 400-600 word wayfinding audit of the level. Identify the three most effective wayfinding choices and the three weakest. For the weakest, suggest a specific fix — not a redesign, just a small change that would have prevented the confusion.

Wayfinding is invisible when it is good and obvious when it is bad. This exercise trains your eye to see both.

Exercise 4: Paper-Prototype Level 1 (Design, 4-6 hours)

This is the first of three paper prototypes that constitute your progressive project for this chapter. Choose the role Level 1 will serve in your game (most commonly: tutorial/opening area, establishing the game's identity).

Produce four artifacts on graph paper:

4a. The map. A top-down sketch showing the spatial layout. Mark walls, doors, key objects, enemy positions, item placements. Use a clear legend. The map should be readable by another person without verbal explanation.

4b. The pacing chart. Horizontal axis: player progress through the level. Vertical axis: intensity. Plot the intended emotional arc as a curve. Mark peaks and valleys. Annotate each high point (what is happening) and each low point (what is the player doing).

4c. The critical path / optional content map. Take your map and trace the expected critical path in one color. Mark optional content in another color. The ratio should feel right for the kind of game you are making.

4d. Composition sketches. Draw thumbnails of the level's 2-4 major spatial reveals. For each, note foreground, midground, background, focal point, and the compositional techniques (leading lines, framing, contrast) at work.

No shortcuts. No skipping artifacts. If you find yourself wanting to skip the pacing chart because "I already have the map," remember that the pacing chart is the artifact that will prevent you from building something flat. It is the instrument of deliberate emotional design.

When you are finished, spend ten minutes critiquing your own work. What works? What is unclear? What would you change on the second draft?

Exercise 5: Paper-Prototype Level 2 (Design, 4-6 hours)

Repeat the full four-artifact process for a second level. Choose a role that contrasts with Level 1 — if Level 1 is a tutorial, make Level 2 a major area with combat and exploration; if Level 1 is an open area, make Level 2 a tighter dungeon.

Before you start drawing, write down two sentences: The player has just finished Level 1. When they enter Level 2, I want them to feel __ and to discover ____. The emotional transition from one level to the next is part of the design. A level that ignores what came before produces tonal whiplash.

Produce the same four artifacts: map, pacing chart, critical/optional map, composition sketches.

When you are finished, compare Level 2 to Level 1. Do the pacing curves have different shapes? Good — they should. Do the composition sketches share a visual language? Good — they should. Does Level 2 feel like a continuation or a departure? Both are valid answers, but you should know which one and why.

Exercise 6: Paper-Prototype Level 3 (Design, 4-6 hours)

Repeat the process for a third level. By now, the routine should feel familiar. Pick a role that stretches you — if your first two levels were linear, try a branching structure. If they were closed-off, try something more open. The third level should expand your range.

Produce the same four artifacts.

When you are finished, lay all three levels out side by side. The three of them together are your paper-prototype portfolio for this chapter. Spend thirty minutes studying them.

  • Do they share a coherent visual language?
  • Are their pacing curves varied in shape?
  • Do the critical-path ratios feel appropriate?
  • If you handed these to an artist, could they start building from them?

Write a 200-300 word self-critique identifying the strongest and weakest of the three levels, and what you would change on revision.

Exercise 7: Redesign a Bad Level (Design, 2-3 hours)

Pick a level you found frustrating, boring, or poorly designed in a game you have played. This is not an exercise in hating — it is an exercise in applying principles to fix concrete problems.

First, diagnose the level in writing (200-400 words). What were its specific failures? Was the pacing flat? Were affordances unsignified? Was the critical path unclear? Did it violate the introduce-test-twist-master pattern? Be specific: name the problems, and link each to a principle from the chapter.

Then redesign the level on paper, producing the same four artifacts as in Exercises 4-6. The redesign should preserve the level's core purpose and content while fixing the diagnosed problems.

When you are finished, write a 200-300 word reflection comparing the original and the redesign. What principle did you apply to each problem? Which fixes were obvious once you named the problem? Which required creative thinking?

The exercise trains two muscles simultaneously: diagnostic (reading a bad level and identifying what went wrong) and reconstructive (applying principles to fix it). Both are essential for level design.

Exercise 8: Arena Variation Catalog (Design, 90 minutes)

On paper, design six small combat arenas, each using a different variation of the arena pattern from Section 16.12:

  1. Basic closed arena
  2. Arena with verticality
  3. Arena with cover
  4. Arena with hazards
  5. Arena with waves
  6. Arena with objectives

Each arena should be small — fit on a single graph-paper page. Each should use the same basic combat mechanics (whatever your project uses) but produce a different combat experience.

For each arena, write a two-sentence description of the combat texture you are targeting: "This arena should feel __ because ____."

The exercise teaches you that the arena is not one thing — it is a family of patterns, each producing a different experience. When you later find yourself with a combat encounter to design, you will have a vocabulary of six options rather than a default "closed room full of enemies."

Exercise 9: The Introduce-Test-Twist-Master Sequence (Design, 2 hours)

Pick one mechanic from your project — jumping, a specific attack, wall-climbing, a traversal tool, anything. Design a four-level sequence that introduces, tests, twists, and masters that mechanic.

Each of the four "levels" can be small — a single room or screen is fine. What matters is the pedagogical arc.

Level 1 (Introduce): The player encounters the mechanic in isolation, with no penalty for failure. They figure out what it does.

Level 2 (Test): The player applies the mechanic under mild pressure. There is consequence. Other familiar mechanics are present.

Level 3 (Twist): The mechanic appears in an unexpected configuration — combined with another mechanic, used in a surprising way, or modified.

Level 4 (Master): The mechanic is used as a building block in a complex challenge. The player no longer thinks of it as "the new thing" — it is a tool.

Sketch each of the four levels on graph paper with brief annotations.

Then write a 200-300 word reflection: which phase was hardest to design? Most designers find "Twist" the hardest — it requires inventive combination, which is a creative leap. The difficulty of Twist is why so many games settle into monotonous Test-Test-Test sequences without it.

Exercise 10: Sight Line Composition (Design, 90 minutes)

On a single graph paper page, design a single room whose only function is to direct the player's eye toward a specific destination using pure composition — no text, no HUD, no arrows.

The room should have a clear point of entry and a clear destination. Between the two, there should be enough spatial complexity that the destination is not trivially obvious — but the composition should make the destination the inevitable place the player's eye goes.

Use the techniques from Section 16.7:

  • Leading lines (walls, beams, cracks)
  • Framing (doorways, arches, natural features)
  • Lighting (implied by shaded regions on the page)
  • Contrast (mark high-contrast elements)
  • Depth cues (foreground, midground, background)

Annotate each compositional choice on the page. "Wall angles toward destination — leading line." "Arch frames destination." "Lighting pool on destination — contrast."

Then playtest on paper: ask a friend to trace where their eye goes first when they look at the room. If their eye goes to the destination, the composition works. If it goes elsewhere, diagnose what pulled the eye the wrong way and revise.

Exercise 11: Scale and Awe Sketches (Design, 60 minutes)

Design three compositions in which the player's small character encounters a massive environmental element. The three should use different approaches to producing awe:

  1. Vertical awe: A tall structure the player must climb or looks up at.
  2. Horizontal awe: A vast distance the player sees across.
  3. Massed awe: A single enormous object or being the player is near.

For each composition, draw a thumbnail showing:

  • The player character (to establish scale)
  • The massive element
  • The framing of the reveal (what the player is emerging from or standing in when they first see it)
  • The approach (how the player moves toward or through the element)

Annotate the composition with the awe-producing techniques it uses.

Then write a short note (50-100 words per composition) on the emotional register each composition is targeting. Vertical awe, horizontal awe, and massed awe produce different feelings — identify which yours produces.

Exercise 12: Level Design Portfolio Review (Self-Assessment, 2 hours)

Take all the work you have produced in Exercises 1 through 11 and lay it out — physically, on a large table or wall if possible. The analysis essays, the pacing charts, the three paper-prototyped levels, the redesign, the arena catalog, the four-phase sequence, the sight line composition, the scale sketches.

Spend an hour reviewing the whole body of work. Then write a 500-700 word self-assessment answering:

  1. Which exercise did you learn the most from, and why?
  2. Which artifact of yours is you most proud of?
  3. Which is weakest, and why?
  4. What pattern do you notice in your own design instincts? (Are you drawn to open spaces? Tight ones? Combat-heavy? Exploration-heavy? Linear? Branching?)
  5. What is one specific level design skill you know you need to develop further, based on this work?

The self-assessment is not academic — it is a mirror. Level designers develop their style and their blind spots simultaneously, and the early recognition of both is the difference between designers who improve and designers who stagnate.

When you are finished, keep your paper prototypes. You will build them in Godot in Chapter 17 — and having the hand-drawn source of truth at your side as you translate will save you hours of wandering in the tilemap editor.

Working Notes

These exercises are cumulative. The analysis exercises (1, 2, 3) train your eye; the design exercises (4-11) train your hand; the self-assessment (12) trains your judgment. Level design requires all three.

If you cannot complete all twelve in one pass, prioritize Exercises 4, 5, and 6 (the three paper prototypes) — they are the chapter's project work, and Chapter 17 assumes you have them. Exercises 1 and 2 sharpen your analytical eye and should be done before the paper prototypes. Exercise 9 (the pedagogical sequence) is the most immediately useful skill after the prototypes.

The time budgets are conservative. If you find yourself going faster, you are probably rushing. Level design benefits from slow attention — the more time you spend looking at a composition, the more decisions you notice you need to make. The best level designers work slowly on paper and quickly in the engine, because by the time they get to the engine, most decisions are already made.

Bring your prototypes to Chapter 17. We build them for real next.