CAKE. A Layered Approach to Level Design & Environmental Storytelling in Video Games

9 min readJan 22, 2023

I like cake. If you know me, than you know this is fact. Therefore, as I sit here, eating a lovely piece of layered yumminess — procrastinating on my own level design work — I have been inspired to write a short and sweet article about how I make levels in layers — just like my precious, cake.

Now, to be clear, this article isn’t about how I utilize game engines or map editors to make level design magic. Instead, this article talks about a theory I apply to my design practices while I am thinking about the spaces I am going to construct, what those scenes will look like, and what kind of gameplay might be happening in my level as it pertains to the narrative of the overall project.

I design levels by using a layered approach. I begin by fleshing out the first layer of my design, then apply the second layer, then the third, and the fourth layers. I do this in order. Sometimes, I revisit all of the layers in an iterative process, but it starts by modifying layers that exist based on the layers before it.

I’d like to also note that I did not invent this theory/technique, but it is one that has been passed down and all around among developers. I have included a few links in the resources at the bottom of this page to learn more. I learned it first from a professor at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University.

[13] Environmental Storytelling: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/RnXy6A

The Layers

C. Commonplace environment (before)
A. Adapt for fun (because IRL is often boring)
K. Kerfuffle that changed the space (after)
E. Eventually it became this (present day)

C — Commonplace

Concept your environments initially based on what these places were before any events happened them; the before times. The commonplace use of the environment before there was a zombie apocalypse, war, accident, etc. Maybe that is designing a building with a bunch of offices in it, a city park, or a large grocery store.

For many, this first layer will be a cakewalk, but far too often, I see levels where the design simply stops here. To grow as a designer, I suggest adding layers to your cake as I note below.

A — Adapt

Take that commonplace environment for the real world and adapt it to what is actually fun to traverse in a game. Sometimes, real world spaces are functional but not fun to play in.

An office building for example: while office buildings normally have a tons of hallways and square rooms, that can become very boring to traverse for gameplay and doesn’t give the player or enemies much cover. Also, the player could skip all of the rooms which become a waste of time to build out. Time is money.

To adapt this space, the designer could add double doors in the halls that are locked; maybe this forces the player to enter an office and go into a side door leading to the office next to it, only to allow the player back in the hallway on the other side of the double doors. Perhaps, the player can see enemies on the other side of those doors through the glass and plan ahead. As the player walks into an office space, this could trigger an enemy to come out of the other office door towards the player. If there are no enemies, perhaps opening these doors are part of a puzzle and the answer is in the accessible office somewhere.

I often see designers stop here, at the gameplay. The more layers to the cake, the better the cake — the more immersive the experience. Keep layering below.

K — Kerfuffle

During the design phase, consider how those adapted environments may have been impacted by the kerfuffle that happened in your world before present day. Think about what conflict the overall game brings to light. What action was put into motion to bring about the change of everything that was before? Think about what the narrative designer is trying to explain to the player through a backstory that is told either explicitly or implicitly.

Lets take a post apocalyptic city as an example that many games use. Commonplace is the city as it always was, before — an exercise in urban planning, architecture, and a little world-building. Adapting it makes that city fun to traverse; this is less about the city narrative of the game and more about the designer making that city fun to play. The kerfuffle is the event that modifies that city, and the designer can show the effects of the event that occurred on top of the city that already existed before it. Let’s say that our kerfuffle event was a virus that swept over the world and left people to fend for their survival.

The effects of that virus/kerfuffle could include a destroyed infrastructure, broken down communications, a city in disarray, etc. Parsing that down, a level designer could consider the world-building of the game and show this through environmental storytelling: cars flipped over, city blocks covered in broken glass, trash, and fires, political posters, and not many friendly characters to talk to. Dangers could be placed in the world such as zombies infected by that virus or people who are willing to kill to get food and other supplies at the cost of your life as the player; other hazards could be those fires, radiation zones, or traps set by other humans.

In any case, the goal of this layer is to show what happened to the commonplace space after the major conflict the world-building is trying to tell or show the player. Level designers can do this through small props, decals, gameplay related larger props in the scene, animations, VFX, SFX, interactable objects, bodies, flickering lights, colors, general scene layouts, anti-affordances, etc. It’s 50% design consideration at the beginning of the project, and 50% aesthetics detail near the end of the project.

And yet, there is another often overlooked layer.

E — Eventually

Assuming that the kerfuffle has been going on for some time, and may still be ongoing, what in the world of this level has changed to adapt to that kerfuffle? What has eventually happened after of the kerfuffle?

Have displaced families moved into broken down warehouses? Have militant groups formed and claimed abandoned government buildings as their base? Have survivors set up market stands and makeshift colonies underground? These are things that didn’t exist before the kerfuffle, and they didn’t exist because of the kerfuffle, but instead, they exist as a result of living in the post-kerfuffle world for some time.

Let’s look at the whole cake in action below to see how the post-kerfuffle, gameplay can eventually be integrated into the level plans.

C.A.K.E. in Action

C.
So perhaps, a level is based on commonplace New York City. A city block is rough-sketched on some graph paper for instance.

A.
The designer decides where boring areas could be made more fun and adapts the level to includes ziplines, locked doors, vehicles, and ladders into the diagrams.

K.
Next, holes in floors, shattered glass store fonts, flipped over vehicles, debris blocking passage ways, and kerfuffle hazards (such as zombies and fire) are added in the map diagram for the level.

E.
Eventually, the designer considers the final condition of the world and plans for the critical player paths, major gameplay moments, combat encounters, and conveyance techniques.

In this case, the player might need to get health supplies and establish a faction in the city. The designer might decide that what was once an office building in a regular city is now disheveled due to rioting and looting after a pandemic, and the former office space has since been repurposed to be a faction’s hideout where the player must go to chat with a boss character to join or fight their faction. Their journey involves finding a way to the top floor by crawling through vents and finding holes in the walls, while regular passageways are blocked or teeming with zombies.

This is much more interesting and immersive than: a player will walk though an office building, take an elevator to the top floor, and talk to a character at the end of the hall.

I should note here, that in general, designers should not actually build out each of these layers in the engines or editors they are working in, only to delete and/or change what they already made for the sake of having layers. That would be a waste of time — generally speaking. Instead, they should think about all of these layers when drawing up map diagrams and blockouts.
When it is time to implement narrative beats, interactable gameplay, combat encounters, and conveyance elements, they can start implementing some of these layers into their engines and editors based on their pre-determined diagrams and level design documentation. Of course, after one begins to do aesthetic passes, these layers really begin to come to life.
So, in general, the C.A.K.E. philosophy is not something that is considered once in a project, and the designer moves on. Instead, all four layers should be considered at each stage of development.
Also, after all layers have been considered during a stage in development, all layers should be revisited together to ensure the level is cohesive, properly scoped, and fun from all angles.

The Icing on the CAKE!

Of course, the best part of the cake is the icing! (Ok, maybe not. I know many folks who would prefer to just eat the cake.) Either way, let’s add the icing:

I. Involvement

Involvement

Finally, think about how the player might be involved in the world and how they can change it. Can they solve a problem? Can they cause more problems? Can they damage the environment or cause NPCS to act differently? Consider giving the player a choice and imply what that choice may do to the environment.

For example, if a player chooses a faction and collects medical supplies for that faction, perhaps that choice turns an abandoned warehouse the player saw previously into a makeshift hospital when they return. If the player chose an opposing faction and was hired to make a delivery, perhaps that abandoned warehouse would be repurposed as a nightclub where bandits deal drugs and firearms.

Wait! What About the SpRiNkLeS?!

S. Sprinkles

Sprinkles

There is more to level design than just thinking about the world a level exists in…I mean, did you think level design was a piece of cake?

For every sprinkle on a cake, there is some other technique and theory to consider as you build a level for a video game. As a bonus, I will link a few other resources that will help you bake awesome cakes — I mean make awesome levels:

“35 Ways to Guide the player”

“Invisible Intuition: Level Design Workshop: Blockmesh and Lighting Tips”

“Level Design Workflow — Ep1 (Overview)”

“UE4: In-Depth Level Creation Workflow — From BSP to Final Level/Environment”

“How to: LEVEL DESIGN — Dev Tips | Myrkur Games”