jdanielx

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."

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

Hey Radu,

Sorry for the late reply been busy with work.

I have applied too all sort of company's in the UK, like Ubisoft, firesprite, Sony London, Cloud imperium games, splash games,  sumo digital ltd, Creative Assembly, codemasters, climax studios and many more. There were a two that I got invite to the studio and few I fail on the test which is fine helped me improve, while the rest said "unfortunately".

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.
My target company I wanna be apart of is Naughty Dog like that my end goal, that the reason why I meanly did linear single player games, which is what I meanly play aswell. I don't mind doing multiplayer levels as love a new challenge aswell as learning new things. 
 

So would it be worth doing a blockout level and then uses one of the SDK to make it fully playable level?
Also been thinking of getting dreams and build a level on there aswell. 
 
All I been doing is keep pushing forwards until one day someone will take a chance with me, not going to give up!!  
 
Thanks Radu for reply back to me
 
  
 

Hi Everyone, hope your all good,
I'm Daniel  I'm an aspiring Level Designer. always looking at different ways to improve in my spare time.
Well I have been trying for two years now to get into my dream job as a level designer in the gaming industry with having no luck, and I have been creating levels in my spare time and this year has been short due to pandemic and PC keep crashing.
Here the link to my website: www.danielmck.com
 
I'm looking for feedback on my portfolio and my levels, what's good about it, can it be done better or what bad about the level.
Additionally, I'm always on the look out for a level designer position within the industry and would be excited to further discuss any opportunities.

Thanks in advance for any feedback and help you can provide!