EdX

The Basics of Level Design (edX)

Offered by LaSalle College, LaSalleX,
The Basics of Level Design (edX)

Discover how to create captivating video games with not just your visuals and gameplay, but level design as well. This course introduces you to the fundamentals of game level design—a crucial aspect of video game design that centers around the creation of playable spaces. As a level designer, you will be required to create well-designed levels that direct the movement of the player(s) through the game—often without the player consciously recognizing they’re being directed.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see EdX's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

This course will introduce you to the core concepts involved in designing a game level, along with important steps in the design process. The course explores what a level is, who is responsible for designing levels, and the different roles involved in game level design.
Using different sample designs, such as dungeon design and other popular genres of roguelikes and adventure games, we will identify the elements of the various stages of the design process used in the game industry and how they have evolved through time.
This course is part of the Introduction to Level Design XSeries.

What you'll learn

  • How level design has evolved and contributes to a player’s experience
  • Common milestones in the level design process and an overview of some of the key roles involved in the process.
  • How to implement story-based level design.
  • How dungeon design has evolved in the context of video games, including the popular genres of roguelikes and adventure games.

Syllabus

Module 1: Introduction to level design

  • What is level design?
  • Core concepts in level design
  • The level design process

Module 2: Story-based level design and dungeon design

  • Story-based level design
  • Dungeon design

Module 3: Beyond dungeons: Roguelikes, adventure games and RPGs

  • Roguelikes
  • Adventure games
Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Sports and Society (Coursera) Coursera
Duke University

Sports and Society (Coursera)

Sports play a giant role in contemporary society worldwide. But few of us pause to think about the larger questions of money, politics, race, sex, culture, and commercialization that surround sports everywhere. This course draws on the tools of anthropology, sociology, history, and other disciplines to give you new perspectives on the games we watch and play.

Sep 7th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Shooters and Game Engines in Level Design (edX) EdX
LaSalle College,LaSalleX

Shooters and Game Engines in Level Design (edX)

Shooter games have been and continue to be the dominant genre in video games. Learn about this important genre in game design. Do you want to learn more about game genres and subgenres? This course continues your exploration of level design by introducing you to an important genre: the shooter. The shooter genre is huge in the game world, containing a wide variety of subgenres with their own gameplay needs.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
History of Games: 1990 to the late 2000s (edX) EdX
LaSalle College,LaSalleX

History of Games: 1990 to the late 2000s (edX)

Discover the technological breakthroughs, gadgets and consoles that revolutionized the gaming industry. It’s now time to continue your captivating journey through the history of gaming. In this second course, you will learn about the technological advancements of the early 1990s and the development of the fourth- and fifth-generation video game consoles—some of which survived even after their successor generation entered the market.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
History of Game Design: Prehistory to the late 1980s (edX) EdX
LaSalle College,LaSalleX

History of Game Design: Prehistory to the late 1980s (edX)

Discover how board and arcade games evolved into ground-breaking video game consoles. Want to take a fascinating journey through the history of gaming? Then this course is for you. Our journey begins with an exploration of how ancient board games evolved into modern board games and arcade games. Then we will explore the development of first- and second-generation video games, and finally, innovative third-generation game technology.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Introducción al desarrollo de videojuegos con Unity (edX) EdX
Universitat Politècnica de València,UPValenciaX

Introducción al desarrollo de videojuegos con Unity (edX)

Aprende a desarrollar videojuegos multiplataforma utilizando una de las herramientas más populares del mercado, el motor de juegos de Unity. Nunca antes el mercado de los videojuegos se ha encontrado en un mejor momento. En la actualidad existen multitud de plataformas disponibles y la irrupción de los dispositivos móviles ha revolucionado el sector.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Introduction to Game Design: Process and Creation (edX) EdX
LaSalle College,LaSalleX

Introduction to Game Design: Process and Creation (edX)

Learn the steps involved in the game design process⁠—turning the vision into reality. What is good game design? How do you come up with good game ideas? How do you start documenting your ideas? How do you create an experience? How do you write a rule book? These are some of the questions that will come up during the game design process, and this course will enable you to answer them.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Motores gráficos en videojuegos: game engine (Coursera) Coursera
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Motores gráficos en videojuegos: game engine (Coursera)

Para todas aquellas personas que han querido saber cómo se creaba un videojuego, en este curso vamos a explicar cómo crear un pequeño motor, uno de los elementos nucleares de cualquier videojuego. El curso persigue comprender su concepto, entender qué es ese núcleo que en terminología inglesa se conoce como 'game engine', Analizaremos no solo su papel, sino qué utilidades debe proporcionar para ser utilizado en un videojuego. Y todo ello, explicando cómo crear un pequeño motor desde cero, que nos permitirá crear un videojuego en DirectX11.

Aug 24th 2026
4 Weeks
Worldbuilding for Video Games (edX) EdX
The University of British Columbia,UBCx

Worldbuilding for Video Games (edX)

Learn the fundamentals of building video game worlds, from a writer’s perspective. A game’s setting is second in importance only to the game’s player character - and some say it’s more important. Game designers must create a compelling new world that players will want to explore and inhabit for many, many hours.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Introduction to Game Design: Game Systems and Balance (edX) EdX
LaSalle College,LaSalleX

Introduction to Game Design: Game Systems and Balance (edX)

Learn the deep mechanics of good system design that is both fun and rewarding for the gamer. Game designers create the ideas and worlds of games—they design the environment, characters, game mechanics, goals and user experience. Successful game designers do this by applying the fundamentals of game system design and logic.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Introduction to C++ Programming and Unreal (Coursera) Coursera
University of Colorado System

Introduction to C++ Programming and Unreal (Coursera)

This course is all about starting to learn how to develop video games using the C++ programming language and the Unreal Engine on Windows or Mac. This course assumes you have previous programming experience in some other language. Although we'll start at the very beginning for C++, hardly anybody learns (or teaches) C++ as a first language. Similarly, Unreal Engine is a commercial, industrial strength game engine. With great power comes great ... complexity, so it's important that you have the will to work hard to learn how to use C++ in Unreal Engine.

Aug 24th 2026
4 Weeks
Types of Games in Level Design (edX) EdX
LaSalle College,LaSalleX

Types of Games in Level Design (edX)

Explore the many types of video games and their level design considerations. There are many categories of video games, often classified by their characteristics or goals—not by the type of gameplay they contain. Are you curious to learn about the growing variety of genres and subgenres? Want to discover which game genres appeal to you? No matter what your interest, this course takes you through what you need to know about genres in the game world.

Self Paced
Self-Paced