Quick Dev Insights #02 - Level Designer - Alfie Bawden

This was originally a blog post on gamedeveloper.com but they had problems and it got wiped, so I’m putting it on my website instead

Welcome to Quick Dev Insights. A series of bite-sized interviews with people who work in and around the games industry, from indie to AAA. A full list of these interviews can be found here and you can follow my Twitter to find out when new ones are released!

Level Designer Insights with Alfie Bawden

PITSTOP Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Map (Included as an official map as part of the Spring 2021 rotation)

Introduce yourself

I’m Alfie Bawden, better known online as Quoting, a student and lever designer from the UK. Like many level designers, I got my first start through modding and the Source engine. Counter-strike has always been my favourite game where I learnt both how to aim with a mouse and the fundamentals of level design. What started as a hobby six years ago has expanded into my career and I have since worked with Valve on official content updates for the game. Recently I have also begun to expand my knowledge into Unreal Engine with my first full-time level design position in a small UK development team.

When you start a new level how do you get around the blank canvas problem?

I find that all good levels start with a large collection of references - PureRef is my program of choice for this. Real-world locations are designed at different scales and composed of varying architectural elements so understanding these early on for the location you intend to create is super important. For example, a train station is open with lots of long, horizontal sightlines while a market is twisting and more intimate. As such, they require different considerations and approaches. Both will have natural useful features and limitations to design around.

Everything from floor plans, images, 3D scans and video can make a good reference. While this also helps artists down the line, it allows me as a level designer to pick out interesting shapes and pathing in the design of an area which can then be built into geometry in the editor. These may be initially small studies capturing the essence of the location but can later be expanded into a full layout or act as points of interest. Being able to work on small sections from reference material takes some of the enormity out of the task and gives you lots of little pieces to build and experiment from.

What's your workflow when building out a level?

As previously mentioned, references are where I begin followed by some rough top-down sketching on paper. This allows for fast iteration and to begin thinking about overall flow. It can be easy to get very hung up on paper sketches, making many tiny adjustments, but they do not tend to capture height or other elements which affect a level in 3D. Because of this, I try to jump into the editor as soon as possible once I have a base to work from. From here it is a case of further iteration and regular playtesting with other level designers. I try not to get too attached to specific ideas early on and I find it positive to recognise that sometimes the best course of action for a problematic area is to strip it back to nothing and try something new. Once I have settled on a near final layout I will either begin set dressing or liaise with the artists depending on the team involved and project scope. Before a final release, I playtest again to ensure no angles or flow has been inadvertently lost when art was applied. After this the level is ready to be shipped.

What did you learn from your experience making Counter-Strike maps?

The single most important lesson I’ve learned from mapping for Counter-Strike is to know the player and know the game. You can not make a good level for a game you don’t understand all the mechanics of and nothing is a substitute for playing yourself and gaining that first hand experience. This is always the advice I give to new level designers before jumping into a project.

The nature of Counter-Strike means that every element of the game is looked at through a competitive eye. Players will make quick judgements about a level from first impressions and are often most comfortable on maps two decades old where they know every inch from memory. This means that making a popular new map for CS requires a careful blend of innovation and familiarity. Designing maps for the game has definitely taught me the importance of balancing these two factors.

Additionally, the round based nature of Counter-Strike facilitates a need for replayability and including a good number of potential setups without over complicating a layout. This has influenced my level design in other projects by making me actively consider the players options throughout the creation process.

How do you approach feedback as a level designer to improve your levels? What about feedback which is contradictory?

Getting the most out of the feedback you receive is a very important skill as a level designer and requires an understanding of the differences in the types of feedback you may be given. Different playtesters will naturally have a different frame of reference through which they view your level so can offer varied perspectives each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

For this reason I always try to test my levels with a mixture of other professional level designers and regular players. While level designers can accurately describe conceptual issues such as level flow and player guidance, they may not have the same experience with game mechanics as veteran players or the fresh eyes of new ones. Likewise, players can often feel something is off with a level but don’t always identify the correct root cause. This is why the filtering of feedback to extract the best path forward is very important; not all feedback is created equal. In short, all feedback is good to consider but selecting the most relevant pieces to act on requires assessing the view through which it was given.

Are there any resources that really helped you learn level design?

I believe the most invaluable resource to any level designer is peer feedback so I’d like to link to some communities that have, and continue to, help me with my levels:

• Mapcore - A game development community with a large number of professional level designer members. Mapcore is historically a forum but now also has a very active Discord server.

• Source Engine Discord - A community focused around Source Engine game modding and the best place to begin for anyone interested in mapping for Counter-Strike.

Where to find more about you / things you're working on?

You can find me at quo.dev or on my Twitter where I post all of my level releases and other related things I am working on.