u/-Kemy

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working as a Game Designer, mostly in a generalist role. My experience is primarily in systems design, economy design, progression systems, and feature design.

Level Design has always been an area that interests me, but I've never had the opportunity to work on it professionally. Recently I've been thinking about developing this skill, but I honestly don't know where to begin, and that lack of knowledge is making the whole topic feel a bit intimidating.

My goal is not just to learn as a hobby, but to build skills that would be relevant in a professional environment.

For example, I'd like to create a simple blockout level in Unity, add basic lighting, iterate on it, and learn proper workflows. However, I'm not sure what tools, assets, or pipelines are commonly used today.

Some questions I have:

• What would be a good first project for someone coming from a Game Design background?
• Is Unity a reasonable choice for learning modern Level Design workflows, or would Unreal be a better investment?
• Are there any industry-standard blockout/prototyping tools or assets that beginners should learn?
• What skills separate a good Level Designer from a Game Designer who simply places objects in a map?
• If you were starting from scratch today, what learning path would you follow?

Since I am more familiar with Unity, I'd start with Unity and then switch to Unreal Engine at some point to get into the Unreal Engine as well.

I'd appreciate any advice, resources, courses, videos, or examples that helped you when you were getting started. Plus, I would like to see your level design portfolios as well!

Thanks in advance!