| Talk Name | Year | Talk Description | Slides PDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Designing the Museum Flashback: 'The Last of Us Part II' (YouTube, GDC Vault) | 2022 | by Evan Hill; storytelling and pacing for a walking sim level, and an overview of the level production process at Naughty Dog. | LastOfUsMuseum_EvanHill.pdf |
| Just Me & My Pitch: The Confused Art of Showing a Layout (GDC Vault) | 2022 | by Simon-Albert Boudreault; abstract production process theory for iterating on layouts, how to run a design meeting. | JustMeAndMyPitch_Boudreault.pdf |
| ⭐ Modular Level Design of Fallout 4 (YouTube, GDC Vault) | 2016 | by Joel Burgess and Nathan Purkeypile; an authoritative primer to modular kit design, essential for environment artists. | Fallout4Modular_BurgessPurkeypile.pdf |
| Wayfinding and Storytelling (GDC Vault) | 2015 | by Brendon Chung; wayfinding and storytelling, but maybe more about flow. Lots of videos, slides not recommended. | WayfindingStorytelling_BrendonChung.pdf |
| ⭐ Everything I Learned About Level Design I Learned from Disneyland (GDC Vault) | 2009 | by Scott Rogers; the original theme park level design talk. Despite its influence, we disagree with much of it, see: Disneyland. |
| Talk Name | Year | Talk Description | Slides PDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creating Conflict: Combat Design for AAA Action Games (GDC Vault) | 2016 | by Michael Barclay, Pete Ellis, Sam Howels; three talks on combat pacing, encounter design, and open world combat. | CreatingConflictCombat_BarclayHowelsEllis.pdf |
| Community Level Design for Competitive CS:GO (YouTube (2014), GDC Vault, Archive.org) | 2015 | by Shawn "FMPONE" Snelling and Sal "Volcano" Garozzo; sightlines and readability in PvP maps for Counter-Strike. | CompetitiveCSGO_GarozzoSnelling.pdf |
| ⭐ Design in Detail: Changing the Time Between Shots for the Sniper Rifle from 0.5 to 0.7 Seconds for Halo 3 (YouTube, GDC Vault) | 2010 | by Jaime Griesemer; influential balance and tuning workflow talk, not directly about level design but still relevant to any combat game. See also: Chill Out. | DesignInDetailSniperHalo_Griesemer.pdf |
| Talk Name | Year | Talk Description | Slides PDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Designing Radically Non-Linear Single Player Levels (YouTube, GDC Vault) | 2019 | by Aubrey Serr; affordance theory for systemic non-linear sandbox layouts via immersive sim examples. | RadicallyNonlinear_AubreySerr.pdf |
| 'Hitman' Levels as Social Spaces: The Social Anthropology of Level Design (YouTube, GDC Vault) | 2019 | by Mette Podenphant Andersen; layouts for non-linear sandbox maps in Hitman 2 (2018) as sociological spaces. | HitmanSocial_MettePodenphantAndersen.pdf |
| 'Mooncrash': Resetting the Immersive Simulation (YouTube, GDC Vault) | 2019 | by Rich Wilson; pacing and progression for Prey (2017) DLC adapting the immersive sim into a semi-proc-gen roguelike. | Mooncrash_RichWilson.pdf |
| Level Design in 'Hitman': Guiding Players in a Non-Linear Sandbox (YouTube, GDC Vault) | 2016 | by Mette Podenphant Andersen and Jacob Mikkelsen; tutorial and wayfinding for Hitman 1 (2016) Paris chateau level. | HitmanGuiding_AndersenMikkelsen.pdf |