Level design portfolios: what I actually look for

I review level design portfolios often — in mentoring sessions, at meetups, in DMs from people breaking in. I’ve given two community talks on it, “dos and don’ts” and a general-tips deck. Slides are hard to search and easy to lose, so here is the core of what I say, in writing.

Show the thinking, not just the beauty

The single most common miss: a portfolio full of pretty screenshots and no evidence of decisions. I can’t hire a screenshot. Show me the blockout before the art, the flow diagram, the iteration where something didn’t work and what you changed. A greybox with clear intent beats a lit scene with none. Your portfolio is arguing that you can reason about space; make the reasoning visible.

One deep piece beats five shallow ones

A reviewer’s time per portfolio is short. Five half-explained levels read as five things you didn’t finish thinking about. One level taken all the way — brief, references, blockout, playtest findings, what you cut and why — tells me how you work. Lead with your strongest piece and let it be genuinely deep.

Name the constraints

Every real level is built under constraints: a memory budget, a mission beat it has to serve, a traversal kit you didn’t design. Portfolios that hide constraints look like art projects; portfolios that name them look like jobs. “I had to route three objectives through one hub without backtracking” is a sentence that gets you an interview.

Write like a person

The text around your work matters more than people think. Bullet lists of “utilized,” “leveraged,” “spearheaded” read as filler. Say the specific thing that happened: what the space is for, what broke in playtest, what the fix was. The same rule I hold my own writing to holds here — concrete beats impressive.

Make it easy to review

Put the good stuff first. Caption every image with what it is and why it’s there. Keep the case study skimmable, with the depth one click down. A reviewer who has to dig for your best work usually doesn’t. Respect the fifteen minutes someone is giving you and you’ll get the next fifteen.

If you’re building a level design portfolio and want a second pair of eyes, this is most of what I’d say before we even open it.