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[Royal Den Studios]

Hello, I've recently been working on a game, but I've ran into a couple of issues with the level design. I'm starting to feel like the levels are bland and boring as well as each level is taking me around 3-4 days to make.

Here is an example of a level (The left side is finished and the right is not)

If you have any suggestions on how to fix both problems please feel free to reply below. Thank you for your time.

[Glyph]

There's not much level design to discuss here, since the it's more or less a straight line. Or are you referring to aesthetics? In that case, it's pretty dependent on the game. Is there a reason that the player is in this forest area? Is the forest significant story-wise or are there important structures that could serve as setpieces to pass by/enter? If not, consider picking a more interesting environment -- both for you to design, and for the player to go through.

[Royal Den Studios]

There's not much level design to discuss here, since the it's more or less a straight line. Or are you referring to aesthetics? In that case, it's pretty dependent on the game. Is there a reason that the player is in this forest area? Is the forest significant story-wise or are there important structures that could serve as setpieces to pass by/enter? If not, consider picking a more interesting environment -- both for you to design, and for the player to go through.

Sorry I did mean the aesthetic aspect of it. The setting is set in the fall on a isolated island. Essentially the player will be walking toward a temple mostly based off the sun (The player will also find his weapon here (A golden sword)). The idea of the game is to be more or so a open-world platformer. This only part of the path to temple but there will be areas that are big and open (So the player is allowed to walk upward and downward) So say there was a cave in the overhang beside the waterfall. The player would be able to walk up and access a dungeon of sorts. I hope this made sense. If more information needs to be added I'd be happy to do so.

[Glyph]

With that in mind, you can diversify areas if you plan on meaningful things for the player to come across. Waypoint markers, NPCs, etc. If you have a cave dungeon, should it really just be a cave full of rats, or should it be the long-abandoned hideout of an eccentric cult? Since it's a game, pretty much any history you want to spin can be spun, barring continuity errors. Just start from the solution and work back to the method, as opposed to "I have to design a forest... what normally goes in forests? Trees?"
For this particular map, you say that it's a path leading to a sun temple. With that in mind, I'd keep the imagery consistent - the sun should probably stay on the right side of the map (ahead instead of behind). And, y'know, if they're going to a sun temple then there might be some sun-consecrated altars or monolithic landmarks along the way. Don't take it from me, though. Come up with something that will be fun to make for you.

[ThemsAllTook]

This is more of an artwork than design critique, but my two cents: First thing that comes to mind when I look at that is that everything in it seems exceedingly flat and rigid. Maybe it's an intentional stylistic choice, but I'd have used more colors and shading to break up the patterned rocks, path, foliage, and water. Some angles other than 90° axis aligned would help too - I see one slope in the rocks toward the right side, but all the others are either fully vertical or fully horizontal.

The contour of the path (on the left side, at least) seems to have the opposite problem; it looks like it was drawn freehand with the pencil tool. The usual rule in pixel art is to try to use slopes with a repeating number of pixels as often as you can get away with (45°, 22.5°, 15°, 11.25°, etc.)

Some doodads scattered around could help too. Vines hanging from the trees, moss growing on the rocks, small plants along the path, some wear patterns or tracks, etc.

[Royal Den Studios]

This is more of an artwork than design critique, but my two cents: First thing that comes to mind when I look at that is that everything in it seems exceedingly flat and rigid. Maybe it's an intentional stylistic choice, but I'd have used more colors and shading to break up the patterned rocks, path, foliage, and water. Some angles other than 90° axis aligned would help too - I see one slope in the rocks toward the right side, but all the others are either fully vertical or fully horizontal.

The contour of the path (on the left side, at least) seems to have the opposite problem; it looks like it was drawn freehand with the pencil tool. The usual rule in pixel art is to try to use slopes with a repeating number of pixels as often as you can get away with (45°, 22.5°, 15°, 11.25°, etc.)

Some doodads scattered around could help too. Vines hanging from the trees, moss growing on the rocks, small plants along the path, some wear patterns or tracks, etc.

Thanks for the advice. I was going for a super brothers sword & sorcery type of look with a dragons dogma/dark souls type of feel to the game. I'll see what changes I can make.

[baconman]

Mix up the brightness and color selection of the areas a bit. Way too much grey-dependency.

[SimplyRivet]

Here's my two cents.

For your level design, try increasing the variation between rooms in an area.
For instance, if most of your rooms are wide open areas, like the one you have posted, try a series of much tighter spaces. Instead of keeping all the areas mostly flat, try adding massive drops, and shear cliff faces. Don't worry too much about how it will affect game play at first, that's what play testing is for. What you are trying to do is create memorable set pieces, and add variety to the game.

As far as it taking a lot of time, that's just the nature of the beast. You can try making tile sets, which I would recommend for a few reasons. First, it will drastically cut down on the art time for each level, and allow you to focus on just a few sprites instead of the whole world. This also means if you ever want to change the colors for the sprites, you don't have to re-do all the work.

More importantly, it will help when it comes to play testing. The issue you're going to run into with this method is that you can't change these levels easily. So when there is an issue, and there will be an issue, you will have to sink a large amount of time into changing the art before you can test it again.

If nothing else, I would recommend hashing all of your levels together, and playtesting them before you focus on art. There is nothing more discouraging than finding out that a massive amount of time was wasted on a game project.

[Blink]

I'm glad you mentioned S&S, but I feel like you didn't really study it. Try playing it again with a notebook in hand, and write down your observations on *their* level design. Why is this space here? What purpose does it serve? Is there a reason this slope goes up? (oh, it's the start of the mountain) Why does this get steeper? (we're near the top, it's getting more difficult, etc) Why is this place so flat? (I guess it's a contrast to the slopes from before)

Write down both your questions and your hypothesis, then compare later when you better understand the situation. Best part of game development: justified replays of old favorites.

Or! You can watch someone play it on Youtube and take notes on their playthrough. That's also a good technique.