From first layouts to playable spaces.
I design levels around player flow, readability, pacing and gameplay decisions, iterating from early concepts and blockouts to the final playable environment.
01 / Idea & Research
Define the experience before building the map.
I started by defining the type of competitive experience I wanted to create and researching how Valorant handles rotations, sightlines, objective play and player flow.
The goal was to understand the rules of the game well enough to create something original without breaking what makes its maps work.
02 / DEVELOPMENT & PLANNING
Turn goals into constraints and spatial rules.
Before drawing the final layout, I defined the main design requirements: how many routes each site should have, how rotations should work, where pressure points could appear and what kind of encounters each area should support.
This gave the map a clear structure before committing to specific geometry.
03 / LAYOUT
Solve the relationships before the details.
I translated the initial goals into a 2D layout, defining the main routes, alternative paths, bombsites, connections and rotation possibilities.
Working in 2D allowed me to iterate quickly and focus on how spaces interacted before committing to their final geometry.
04 / BLOCKOUT
A layout becomes meaningful when it becomes playable.
The 2D design was translated into a playable 3D blockout to validate scale, movement, visibility and spatial relationships.
This stage helped reveal problems that were impossible to judge from a top-down layout alone, especially around sightlines, elevation, distances and how spaces were revealed to the player.
05 / TESTING & ITERATION
Design decisions have to survive contact with the player.
Once the map became playable, I evaluated how players moved through it, which routes felt natural, where information was unclear and where the geometry created unwanted advantages or friction.
The layout was adjusted through repeated iterations, refining routes, angles, timings, visibility and combat spaces instead of treating the first playable version as final.
06 / FINAL
Keep the intention, refine everything around it.
The final map is the result of repeatedly testing the original design goals against the playable experience.
The core structure remained recognizable, while individual spaces evolved through iteration to improve readability, navigation, combat opportunities and the overall competitive flow of the map.
