Intro

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In this report I will be looking deeper into the processes that are undertaken in the areas of the development cycle stated in the above report, however, focusing on the work undertaken in the area of game design and also level design. This report will help me to better understand the processes that I will need to undertake and improve upon in order to carry out this project as professionally as possible, as a level and game designer, by using the research to influence my work practice.

Planning

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When I researched into the planning stage of the general development process, I found that this stage is generally used for “ideation and concept” (Brownell, 2024), coming up with ideas and planning for the stages to come. However, when it comes to the planning stage as a game designer or level designer, the documentation is more focused on the user experience and feel of the game, rather than the look, as in art assets, and the technical mechanics that could be included. As a game / level designer, in this stage a large amount of work is positioned on our shoulders, Nathan Kellman (2025) explains, “1: create documentation, which involve a document explaining the level's setting and what's going on”, these documents that Nathan is stating are most likely a Game design document and a story bible, these documents will help me to collate all of my game ideas from setting, user experience and the lore around the world I am creating. A secondary source explains, “A game design will be full of thousands of important decisions” (Schell, 2015), this shows me that a game design document and story bible will make up a large part of my job role in the planning phase. 

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In addition to this, Ultraw (2025) says, “First I'll create a google doc with the overall requirements for the level/map.”, this is very similar to that of my previous primary source who says to create documentation explaining the levels setting and design, this shows me that these responses are both valid and reliable as previous research has shown that these documents are typically created in this phase. As a game designer and more specifically a level designer in this project, I will take on the advice gathered from these two primary sources and will create several documentation such as GDD, Story bible and rough documents showing the requirements for the level, in order to help smooth the development process and ensure that I am working at a more professional level, preparing me for my future work.

Pre-Production

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Going into the Pre-Production stage of the development cycle, as I have previously found, this phase is typically used to focus on developing the concept further and creating early storyboards and prototypes for the game concept. The main areas for focus as a game designer going into this phase is creating early storyboards “Game storyboarding [...] is the process of creating a visual representation of a video game’s narrative, characters, and gameplay elements. It involves crafting a sequence of images or panels, akin to a comic strip, to outline the game’s storyline, levels, puzzles, and overall design.”, (Polydin,2023), storyboarding will allow me to create a basic layout and flow of my game and levels. This document seems to come in many forms and a primary source that I have independently gathered has said “We will draw basic top-down views of how the map could look, where various buildings could be positioned” (Ultraw, 2025), when comparing this to my previous source I can see that Ultraw takes a more hands on approach to the pre-production of the level designs and overall game design, this tells me that there is not a single approach to the pre-production stage and I should follow a strategy that works best for me, this is extremely similar to that of the advice by Nathan Kellman (2025), “[create] a 2D map draw out of the level”. This further evidence that I can trust these sources and to better understand and improve my work approach to this project I must take their advice into consideration and create several level blueprints in the pre-production stage to successfully plan and create a more well rounded outcome.

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Another area of development in the pre-production stage of the project will be early prototyping, this early prototyping is typically used to evaluate and “explore core mechanics, experiment with different gameplay features, and identify potential issues before full-scale production begins.” (GeeksforGeeks, 2024), however, when focusing on game design and level design an early prototype or prototypes are used to script, explore and improve upon the design and layout of levels and create basic gameplay features such as UI and user experience. When looking at this in more detail, I have been able to research into the basics carried out by a level designer, “create a rough blockout with simple shapes following the document and 2d map you made. Do some scripting to get your ideas across, nothing to insane just prototype” (Nathan Kellman, 2025), this verifies the previous source and when comparing them both, I can see that Kellman has given me a more detailed understanding of the processes carried out in early prototyping. I am required to create a basic level layout in Unreal Engine using my 2D design created previously in this phase, this will allow me to get a better feel for the design, feel and interaction with the level design and alas improve the user experience in the level. Furthermore, when looking at another primary source, Ultraw (2025) states, “Then we reach the greybox stage so we can really get a feel for how the map plays in the engine.”, this matches exactly what Nathan stated and going forward I will ensure that I follow a similar approach by planing and prototyping my levels in both 2D and 3D form to better improve the user experience and also to better improve my levels before moving into production.

Production

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Going forward into the production phase of the development cycle, this phase is solely focused on developing the game, art assets and also mechanics, however, as a level designer and game designer the development time is used to to finalise the level designs and start to construct this in-engine following the basic 3D prototypes. “Developers and designers create your game’s world, crafting and coding dynamic environments that complement the story, art direction, and gameplay mechanics” (Bramble, 2023), as we can see from this source, my previous statement is true, my main focus in this stage as a game designer will be developing my levels in Unreal and using visual scripting to add the basic mechanics that I will need into the game, as Ultraw says I will be developing my level and testing the positioning and sizing of the level to ensure that scaling is correct and suitable for the game world, “Then I'll send those to the environment artist, who will "greybox" the level. We will test the sizing and positioning of everything in the level, make tweaks if necessary, then add final assets.” (Ultraw, 2025). From this, I have learnt that I must first greybox my level and make adjustments and tweaks to the sizing and layout of the levels to better improve scaling and help to portray the narrative set out in the GDD and story bible, and then work on bringing all of the assets together into my level. 

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When comparing this to a second source, who provided me with advice on how to improve my level designs, “Make something, find out where it sucks (and why) and iterate. Iterate, iterate, iterate until the money runs out.” (Dan Marshall, 2025), Dan here has made a very clear point in the steps to improving a level, iteration and making regular improvements can help to further develop my game idea and also working practice, and I will be carrying this forward into my production stage, in order to do so. When comparing the two sources above I can see that both have the same idea and approach to production as a level designer, they both say that tweaking and iterating my level designs will help improve the outcome and will further ensure that my game meets the target audience and portrays the narrative set out, another level designer also finds iteration to be important, “Blockout. Blocking out the space, with little to no art, and testing if things work well. (repeat until plays well),Iteration” (Oliver Granlund, 2025), now that three level designers and developers all highlight the importance of testing and iteration, I will carry this forward to improve my work approach and reflect that of studio practice, to improve my professional workflow.

 

Testing and Pre-Launch

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When looking at Testing and Pre-Launch as a game designer, a lot of testing is carried out by a dedicated QA testing team, however, improvements from said testing may be required by a game designer. In this stage a level designer or game designer may choose to carry out playtests, “user feedback type of play test, that designers do to help us understand the real quality of our games.” (School of Game Design, 2020), as I can see playtesting is very different from professional QA testing and is simply carried out to gather user feedback on designs and user experience within the game. When applying this to the role of level designer I can see that this links heavily with that of iteration, “play test and iterate on the level, have other playtest it as well” (Nathan Kellman, 2025), as Nathan has stated, testing goes hand in hand with that of iteration and improving the design of the game and its levels, to benefit user experience.

 

Comparing this to a secondary source, “The success of a game is literally measured by its ability to retain players’ attention. So the more you’re in touch with their feedback, the more likely you’re game will deliver for them.”, (Brazie, 2024), I can compare that both sources highlight the need for playtesting and the results there of, by carrying out playtesting throughout development, I will not only be able to improve my level and game designs, but will also ensure that my game meets the expectations of my target audience. So going forward I will carry out playtest sessions to further improve my level designs and ultimately meet my target audience in the testing and pre-launch phases, because I want to ensure that my practices reflect that of a studio workspace to put myself in a better position going forward as a professional.

 

Launch and Post-Production

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As we move into the two final phases of development, a game designers and level designers involvement is overtaken by that of marketing and programming, in this stage game designers and level designers continue to improve and iterate their designs ready for “finalization”, (Oliver Granlund, 2025), at launch designers will carry out and follow through with improvements and polishing to ensure that the designs created and implemented reflect that of the GDD and meet the expectations and hopes of the target audience, Nathan Kellman (2025) highlights the challenges of the launch phase “the most challenging part is getting it shipped. It's because you are trying to constantly find things that have to be fixed but also making sure that it's up to the standard that the industry is used to”. Nathan, has said consistently that testing and improving upon my work will be a large focus and this highlights that the launch phase is mainly focused on fixing all of the bugs to ensure the standard of work is on par to industry standards, Dan Marshall (2025) also states “The hardest bit is actually the end, once everything's in and decided, and there's this horrible period where you're just endlessly fixing bugs.”. These two sources both emphasise the importance of the launch phase and polishing the game, so going into my launch phase I will ensure that I continue to fix issues and improve on my designs so that they are up to standard. 

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Focusing on post production, a typical studio would carry out a post-mortem, as Denisyuk (2022) says, “a post-mortem (which is essentially a production debrief) [...] discusses what was a success with the title and what didn’t go to plan, these are essential meetings that ensure that future productions can be more streamlined.” As I know from previous experience, it is commonly best practice to create a post-mortem document because it would allow me to look at the development as a whole and evaluate my working practice to highlight areas that need improvement and also areas that are my strengths in order to improve my working practice going forward into other projects and beyond into my professional career. In this project I will ensure that I carry out a post-mortem in post-production to not only improve in a professional manner but to also reflect the working standards and practices of a typical studio, to set me up for later careers and education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Secondary Sources

 

Schell, J. (2015) The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses. Boca Raton: CRC Press. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Art_of_Game_Design/LP5xOYMjQKQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=game+design+document&pg=PA382&printsec=frontcover

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Polydin (2023) Game storyboarding: Crafting the narrative of video games, Polydin. Available at: https://polydin.com/game-storyboarding/#:~:text=It%20involves%20crafting%20a%20sequence,the%20gameplay%20and%20storyline%20structure . (Accessed: 03 March 2025). 

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GeeksforGeeks (2024) Game Prototyping : A beginner’s guide, GeeksforGeeks. Available at: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/game-prototyping/ (Accessed: 03 March 2025). 

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School of Game Design (2020) The play test is one of the most important parts of game design - School of Game Design, Game Design and Development Training. Available at: https://schoolofgamedesign.com/project/play-test-game-design/ (Accessed: 03 March 2025). 

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Brazie, A. (2024) How to practically playtest your game, Game Design Skills. Available at: https://gamedesignskills.com/game-design/playtest/ (Accessed: 03 March 2025). 

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Denisyuk, Y. (2022) What are the stages of game development?, Pingle Studio. Available at: https://pinglestudio.com/blog/full-cycle-development/game-development-stages#:~:text=The%207%20stages%20of%20game%20development%20(Planning%2C%20Pre%2Dproduction,structured%20throughout%20the%20development%20process. (Accessed: 03 March 2025). 

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Primary Sources

 

Dan Marshall (Dan Marshall) (2025:24February)[Email]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nathan Kellman (Nathan Kellman)(2025:26February)[Email]

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Oliver Granlund (@Oliver_Granlund)(2025:3March)[X (Twitter) Direct Message]

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Ultraw (@ultraw.games) (2025:25 February) [Bluesky Direct Message]