Daniel McKenzie - Level Designer ( Hoping to get feedback)

Hey, welcome to Mapcore!

I had a look over your portfolio. I like that it's clean and easy to read. You did a good job with that!

I have to ask, to what companies have you applied over these 2 years? How far did you get in the recruitment process? Did you manage to do any tests? And what feedback did you get if any?

The level blockouts are cool, but they're easy to dismiss because of that. Most of them look like the very first version with limited consideration for metrics or art. The only exception to this appears to be the Chorus and Bank level. You did a much better job at maintaining consistent metrics and working with modular assets. However, the art pass and lighting are not exactly that ideal. As much as level designing is about blocking out stuff and quickly testing ideas, you should also ask yourself how the artists are going to translate some of your elements into functional assets and also keep consistency.

If you aren't targeting a specific company and are instead casting a wider net, then you have another issue. All of your levels are designed for old linear single player games. And while there are studios specifically doing that, there's far more opportunities in multiplayer and open world games. That's just the current situation in the industry. Most games have adopted some form of open world design and feature a fully fledged or limited pvp multiplayer.

My number one advice to anyone applying for a junior level design position today: get a multiplayer level and some sort of open world location. And they don't have to be complicated, but at least take them through the development process, from blockout to release. Get player feedback and incorporate it.

And I know that there is a lack of SDKs being released for new games, but there are a still a few that do and have a shit ton of assets. Have a look at the CSGO SDK and Far Cry 5 Arcade editor.

I don't know what else to tell you. Don't be discouraged! Sooner or later you're gonna land a job, but consider what I mentioned above. I'm convinced it would increase your chances. Also, starting in QA/QC is always an option. Just keep at it and good luck!

For a moment I thought that maybe I was too direct with my feedback

Quote from jdanielx

23 hours ago, jdanielx said: The most recent job I applied was Team 6 Game studio pass the level design test and got to the interview stage but they said today unfortunately they are moving on with someone else, they also said this "We can clearly see that you're an incredibly creative person and that you have some great ideas, something we like to see in a Level Designer! At the same time, we also see this as a possible bottleneck. You've mainly worked on your own projects and therefore you haven't build up (much) experience within a professional environment". which for me is due to not having any team members to build a project upon after leaving Uni 2018, and been trying to break into the industry I really want to be apart of.

To me it reads as if they are worried about your ability to take feedback and move a level in a direction that might not necessarily be what you would like. The advantage of people from a multiplayer community is that they have to test their levels with several people and be receptive to feedback. As much as we have a vision of what our levels should be and play like, others will play in ways we might not have anticipated or find exploits to some ideas we liked. The question then is how to solve those problems while also retaining some of our original ideas. And sometimes we can't. Sometimes you have to throw something you like out and think of something else. Working in a professional environment is a lot like that.

Of course, they might be also thinking about your ability to work on something other than linear single player games. And I would say it's a justified concern. You want to know that your colleagues aren't going to lose motivation because the project isn't aligned to what they prefer. I commend you for aspiring to work at Naughty Dog, but it might be a bit harder than anticipated. For starters, it's a studio with notoriety. The level of competition to getting a job there is super high. I don't know if I would even dare to hope to land a job there right out of school with no prior experience. I don't mean to discourage you by saying that, but you need to get a bit dirty before you can compete with the people applying there.

I would recommend to do a small open world location in Far Cry 5 Arcade. Even though the editor is a very simplified and limited version of the tools being used on the actual job, the workflow is more or less the same. I recently talked @Roald into making something similar. You can check it out in his portfolio: https://www.roaldvanderscheur.com/log

As for multiplayer, Mapcore is the top dog when it comes to CSGO maps. So if you would design a 2v2 or classic 5v5 defuse map, you could test it with us and get feedback on it.

Dreams is cool. I've seen a lot of awesome things being built by people, but I'm not sure how relevant the workflow is. If you can design something that could fit in some game and do an art pass on it, make it presentable, sure. Though, I would highly recommend my previous suggestions.

Quote from jdanielx

8 minutes ago, jdanielx said: See I know there a lot of iterations when it come to LD stuff and I know there be times where the level don't fit with the overall game experiences so it will need to be redone and throw the old out, I don't mind that knowing that it going to make the overall game better for the team and improve myself, like I told them that I don't have industry experiences however I really wanna be apart of a team to carry on growing aswell as be apart with amazing team. so this is why I don't get why they said that to be honest.

I think a big reason for it is that, in your portfolio documentation, I didn't see any mention of how the levels evolved or if you tested them with actual players. I want to know what things worked and didn't, if you found solutions, how you moved forward. Saying that you understand something isn't the same as showing it in your actual work/documentation.

Here's a cool example by someone from ND: http://www.mikebarclay.co.uk/blocktober-2020/

Taken from the blog post, stuff like this:

"The key objective locations changed a lot throughout production as we iterated, made changes to narrative flow and playtested. As players found their way through the space or, as was more common early on, got lost, we would shift pieces of the level around and make adjustments often. The total number of iterations made to a level this size would be in the hundreds, if not thousands, and the end result that you see in game is drastically different to the early drafts of the space."

"I moved the domed building (a synagogue) closer into view as I found it really helped the flow of exploration. It was the most commonly visited first location statistically and I used that to gently push players into discovering secondary locations such as the ruins traversal puzzle and guitar store by placing them between the start position and the synagogue."

"Spacing between these points of interest was important. As we were iterating on the space we had to make sure the map was evenly populated with things to do, to reduce any sense of “dead” areas. Sometimes a specific location was a great fit for a piece of content and other times we had to shift whole buildings to maintain this spread."

I am just an hobbiest myself and just like you trying to find my entry as a Level Designer somewhere. For me personally its multiplayer LD what drives me and since I found Mapcore and became part of the community I learned a lot from the people and experiences. I think, being part of an community, playtest with them, talk to them and giving them feedback really helps you develop as an Level Designer and person. Because it is not just about the LD skills but also about people skills like communication, recieving and giving feedback, presentation and etc. Working with other people (like environment artists) also helps a lot on developing these skills and shows you can work together with other people (which is required in a studio).

I think it is good to not just do LD, but also experiment with doing some environment art and finishing a project from start to finish. Because this means you have to plan/schedule a project from start to finish. It helps you understand what a artist will be up to, so what he will recieve from you as an LD and how you would translate a greybox to a arted finished map (gathering good references, working on interesting geometry and composition). Also you will get trough topics like optimisation and polishing which is something for later, but you should already think of at the start of doing certain maps (especially in Source :P). And other than that, having finished good looking pieces on your portfolio will defenitly get their attention! even though you just did the Level Design part. And who knows, maybe you find out you like environment art more afther all or both! Maybe joining a mod team somewhere is something for you, it is a interesting way to work with other people from different disciplines.

As Radu was saying, he convinced me on doing a map for FC5 and helped me on giving some direction like he would be my lead LD and I report back to him. This basicly helped me plan and document my project like you would do in a professional setting. I am not sure what is the best way, but I think its about showing what decision you made and why you made them during your project and what direction you plan to go with your project. Draw conclusions from your research and player feedback and show how you changed course towards the right direction because of this information and perhaps what you learned and would do better next time. I don't think recruiters go in-depth at first, but when you got their attention and got a interview planned, they will defenitly dive deeper into these kind of things. Also I had to work with a different tool and type of game which was a great new (learning) experience. I would defenitly recommand you trying out this editor, it is really easy to learn and you can build full maps really quickly.

I think it would be worth it doing some Multiplayer LD. Mapcore is mostly focused around CS:GO, which is quite a tough game to build maps for as this game is super competetive. BUT I think you would learn a lot from it and would probably enjoy being in contact with other Level Designers. The easiest way would be playing some CS:GO and trying to get a good understanding of how the game works and why it works (if you didnt yet). Then try out some stuff in the editor, maybe watch some tutorials and such and see if you can come up with some cool layout ideas. The wingman gamemode would defenitly be the easiest to start with as it is more casual. There are two (discord) communities who provide playtests and feedback which might interest you. Mapcore: https://discord.gg/unqF28r Source Engine: https://discord.gg/KBT9MD

Oh and there is this topic:

It's funny this blockmesh argument: some designers are recommending to completely finish the maps, while others -it's my understanding- swear greyboxes are enough. I've recently listened to many level design podcasts and there was the argument that stuff made in Dreams (for example) should most definitely be considered as valuable material.

I think what it comes down to, is the culture in the company you apply at. You are on the right track, you are making stuff and getting it out, what you might want to do to improve your chances is to network, which is not just having a connection on LinkedIn, but get in touch with people from the LD department before you apply and ask some tips, so you can course correct before applying.

For example, knowing my material was most likely not enough to land a job, I contacted someone at the company and got feedback on my portfolio without even applying (and I've noticed in most cases you don't get feedback on your skills/material unless you get past the first stage of the process).

You might be able to find professionals eager to give you 1-to-1 feedback (tutoring you and others might count as management skills that can help their career -- I just landed a job in web design and a question I was asked was: "can you illustrate how you helped a colleague", to which I answered explaining how I tutored someone that had no coding experience).

You can get some experience working in a team by joining some game jam, it looks like there's one every few months! You can try your luck and get some professional experience by freelancing... a friend of mine recently told me he's done some freelance level design (for mobile) and he has never released a game or map for a mod, he was working on a couple of personal projects and that's all, you have more and better material -- but I guess you need to show you can complete a level with art and all (just use free assets).

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It's great that you used video commentary to enrich your case studies, but you need to keep it short and sweet. I skimmed through the LOTR level -which is impressive in scale- but you shoot yourself in the foot by saying "I haven't placed enemies here because I didn't have time". How did you not have time to place a couple placeholders when you've done a 25 min video?

Don't spoil your hard work with comments like that. Show what works (you miss a jump and waste time explaining why - like others said, nail the metrics and cut the noise). Refine a smaller chunk of a big level (have scripts, AI, pickups - I can see what you explain but recruiters don't have all that time).

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I've posted a couple videos on portfolios in the pinned topic earlier, have a look. I suggest you find some talks about design (and portfolios), podcasts might offer some interesting complements (I've been listening to: Level Design Lobby, Level Design Podcast, The Quakecast, Game Dev London).

Level Design Lobby every month does an episode on useful resources (he also does tutoring if you join the Patreon). The aforementioned Michael Barklay was guest in one of these shows. I stumbled on this presentation made in Dreams some time ago, the designer also worked in Naughty Dog, his twitter had some interesting stuff if I remember well, and he was also guest in a podcast.

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You have applied to many companies, don't be discouraged in applying again... but do it when you have done progress, I would target companies you got past the first stage and address your progress straight away in the cover letter.

Wish you best of luck!