Beginning of my level design journey

2020

Hello! my name is Callum and I am currently in my second year of university learning software engineering game development. I don't usually do introductions for my blog post because I don't expect anyone to actually read these posts but by the off chance you find this post I wanted to introduce myself. The topic of this post is kind of a personal one for me since this is where I found my passion for game dev and level design and the thoughts and feelings I had when making said levels, so let get started.

I think for a lot of game developers they realise they want to become a video game developer from a very young age, I certainly was one of those inspiring to become a game developer, I remember my teen years back when I was around age 12 - 16 dreaming about creating the games I was playing when I went home after school. I loved traveling around the massive worlds, completing quests with my friends and learning about the world I was playing in, created by talented video game developers. it just made me want to start creating my own video games, create my own world, tell my own stories. however without getting to deep into my life story because this blog post is mainly about my introduction to game design and I don't want to sound depressing, lets just say after leaving high school the stars didn't align in order for me to follow my game development dream. a lot of dark years went by before I started thinking about my childhood dream of creating games started again, midway through the year 2020 I looked into an online course called "Complete C# unity game developer 2D" on Udemy by a game development team known as GameDev.TV, This was my first introduction to game development and I loved it, however my lack of experience and understanding about programming languages really started to show during the later modules, I slowly became burnt out and my interest slowly started to fade away and so did my love for games. During this time as a last ditch effort to keep the love of making games alive was introducing myself to level design, creating the world I wanted to create and it worked! I fell in love with world building, creating different environments, creating little easter eggs that adds story to the world I created it really brought joy in what felt like dark times.

Going back to when I was in my teen years I played a little popular game known as RuneScape and I loved the art style, low-poly and cartoony. during my time playing the game there was a song that played called sea shanty 2, I have no idea why but when I was thinking about what to make for my first level this song popped in my head like an ear worm, so I had the idea of an deserted adventure, pirate themed island which the player had to travel around and find the secrets of the island.

Introducing my first project: Shantybay island (Great name I know)

 Video link to preview (13s)

Shanty bay was my first project and the style I went for was RuneScape meets Wii sports resort (weird mix a know) The level was far from perfect, the mountain look very weird, the trees wouldn't sway the way I wanted them to due to a bug plus they were all the same size, don't know what I was thinking with that one but at the time it didn't matter I loved how the project looked and was proud of it, I remember showing my friends like an excited kid showing something he was proud of and what made it better was my friends liked it also. After this project I was excited to try out designing other projects that are now sadly have been lost in time and I cannot find, two projects was a small farm level and a space station level. Going onto the end of a tough 2020 I wanted to try making a level celebrating a new year and for the sake of this blog lets call this my 2nd level I created.

Introducing my second project: A new year

Video link to preview (15s)

A new year was my final project of 2020 and it had a lot of flaws like the fireworks going faster than I wanted and not being the size I originally wanted but it was a project that I was really proud of  because it was a peaceful end for a hectic year and it a level that I always look back on appreciated because It make me grateful for a new gaming community I was apart of and a reminder of a fresh start to a new year. After the creation of the project new year, reality kind of made itself known and I had to stop level design for a pretty long time as I couldn't find the time. 

2024 

Skipping four years ahead and believe it or not project new year popped up on my news feed as a memory file and I was in a time of my life where I wanted change and looking back at the new year project I remembered how happy I was designing levels and wanted to try making games again so I eventually came to the decision to apply for a game development course to which I am at to this very day.

  2025

Currently I am working on a group project where I am currently designing the tutorial level for a earth themed tutorial level called "Golariok" and I am slowly gaining my passion for game developement again.

Current progress of Golariok:

The level is still very much a work in progress but I am happy with how it slowly turning out. The pictures display the current state of the level compared to box model layout created by the project lead. I will probably make an update post once the game is officially finished an realised.

But for now that is it about my short development journey so far. thank you for reading and hopefully plenty more opportunity's to make and design games.