Level Design for Games: Creating Compelling Game Experiences

This is an excellent book. It is straightforward and delivers very useful information. This book is devoid of the fluff, generalizations and pseudo-intellectual chatter so many books in the game development/design genre contain. This author speaks from experience, which is evident from his bio, but more so from the flow and genuine voice of his writing. I am particularly cynically and harsh on books in this genre so I didn't write this review lightly.

As an experienced game developer, I found "Level Design for Games" to be a refreshing change, focusing as it does on real world level documentation, from brainstorming, to paper maps, to prototyping and final development. The processes provided are very similar to what you find in professional game development, with an eye to asset reuse and testing designs as early on as possible.It's not perfect however, the text has a few inaccuracies, and some of the content has dated. The last third of the book is very focused on Unreal, so skip it if you're using another engine, but everything else is applicable to level design in general.Regardless, I believe there to be no better introduction to level design, go buy it if you're interested in making level design your career, or if you're going to be involved in the level design process in any way (system designers, environment artists and producers take note).

If you are interested in becoming a game designer... here's your text book, more like your bible. The layout is well done, the information is reasonably up to date (just a little behind the times) and full of ideas and suggestion in assignment format to really get you thinking like a designer. I recommend this one highly.

Older book but very knowledgeable on the subject. There are lots of clear explanations and example images. I have bought several books on the same subject much newer and more expensive and this book trumps them all.

I was expecting a high level of thinking for puzzles and level designs from this book. Instead it took the reader through game production as a whole to highlight where level design fit in to all of it, touching on common sense level design.He also emphasizes the basics of the artist process, purpose in design, reference material, and the general to specific strategy. The last half of the book Co takes readers through the actual building of levels in the unreal engine, in essence writing an unreal engine tutorial of sorts. Making the books actually topic - A basic overview on game production and an Unreal Engine tutorial. Level design is an important field of study for games and I wished this book could have focused on that. I would recommend this book to beginners of game production that will be using the unreal engine, but for everyone else seeking the topic, which is the title of this book, look else where.

It's an okay book. Haven't looked too far into it yet, but quality okay!

The book is practical and easy to read. It is clear that this book is written by somebody with experience from the games industry. Inside the book you will find several useful level diagrams and design examples to help you improve the way you work with, think about and document your level designs. The book is very focused which means that even though it is relatively short, it probably has more (relevant) content than other books which mix in a lot of other subjects (at the expense of level design). If you are a games design student you should read this book.