Anonymous User asked: any tips/tricks for getting into Level Design in 2023?
i feel like all the tools and experience i most associate with a Professional Level Designer are in classic FPS games that i HAVE played at some point, but wouldn’t consider myself familiar enough with to feel like i could build a portfolio in them
are there modern games that might be easier to make levels for or is it not as scary to make a Quake map (or similar) as i’m making it out to be?
Oof. Yeah, this is a hard one.
Modern Games (Air Quotes)
I got into level design via Source around 2011-ish (in particular, Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike Source), which isn't as popular as it was back then, but does still have active communities in a few corners. Source 2 is real now I guess, and the tools are allegedly pretty fuckin' sweet, but of the two games that use it (HL:A and CS2), neither feels particularly approachable for a 'first time messing around with the editor' sort of experience.
Outside of the Valve ecosystem, things feel pretty bleak. There's kids making wild things in Fortnite and Roblox and stuff, and I mean, kudos to them, but I'm not confident that those skills will transfer over much. A nice thing about working with Source was that you were close enough to the engine to learn about some of the more technical aspects of building a virtual space, and how they might influence your designs. Sometimes that learning experience came in the form of incredibly frustrating performance struggles and oblique compiler errors, but them's the breaks. I've heard modding Unity games is a little more popular than it used to be, but I don't know what the tools are like—and I certainly can't think of any games that make me go "yeah, this is a good place to cut your teeth."
Starting With Quake
For the question of "can I make a level in Quake without being intimately familiar with the game?", it's difficult to say from my perspective, on the inside looking out. In terms of the elements available to you—enemies in the roster, weapons and powerups for the player, traps and moving parts—I think the game is slim enough to get yourself up to speed fairly quickly. You may not feel like you have a grasp on their conventional usage, but Quake mapping has a broad spectrum of styles, and a lack of preconceptions may be just what you need to create something truly fresh and unique. For what it's worth, in a gamedev environment, that 'conventional' usage will likely not yet be established—in fact, it may fall on you to invent and refine those conventions as the game's elements take shape. So try not to worry too much about not being familiar enough with the game.
Now on the other hand, Quake is an old-ass game, and even with modern-day engine ports breaking most of its restrictions wide open, it still has a lot of quirks that might make it difficult to approach. I don't think you need to have an in-depth understanding of binary space partitioning or lightmapping techniques to make a level, but you may find yourself dealing with a lot of headaches without at least a basic idea of what's going on under the hood. Your best bet may be to just start building, and consult the community if/when you run into problems. On the plus side, a lot of engines were built on Quake's tech, so if you master that, you'll have an easier time moving over to GoldSrc, Source, various early 00s FPSes, etc.
I Am Bad At Giving Advice Oh God Please Don't Treat Me As If I Know What I'm Doing
But honestly, @joewintergreen or @radiatoryang can probably answer this whole thing better than me.
