Rivac LabsLevel Designer
Level design is where every other decision on a game gets tested — a great mechanic in a poorly paced level feels boring, and a great story in a confusing space goes unnoticed. We build layouts, encounter sequences, and environmental storytelling beats that are paced against player skill and attention, not just laid out to look good in an editor viewport. Teams bring us in when playtesters are dropping off at a specific point, when difficulty spikes feel arbitrary, or when a world looks finished but doesn't guide the player anywhere. We work in your engine, block out spaces fast, and iterate against actual playthrough data — where players stopped, backtracked, or missed the thing you wanted them to see — before anything gets art-passed.
How We’d Approach This
A clear, staged plan — not a black box
- 1
Review existing levels or the level list against your pacing goals and flag where difficulty, novelty, or story beats are out of sequence.
- 2
Grey-box one representative level and playtest it with fresh players, watching for stalls, confusion, and skipped content.
- 3
Walk the pacing and encounter data with your team before committing the layout to final art.
- 4
Deliver an annotated level with call-outs for art, encounter tuning, and any beats that still need iteration after launch.
What You Get
Deliverables from this engagement
- Grey-boxed, playtested level layouts ready for art pass
- An encounter and pacing document per level or per world
- Playtest findings mapped to specific layout changes
- Environmental storytelling notes for the art/narrative handoff
Six Ways We Could Architect This
Different engagement, different build — pick the shape that fits
There’s more than one way to deliver on this service. Browse a few of the ways we’d structure the work, depending on your speed, budget, and integration needs.
Ready to get started?
Tell us what you’re trying to get done and we’ll help you find the highest-leverage place to start — scoped small enough to prove itself before you commit to anything bigger.
Talk to us about Level Designer