Suggestions and Subjective Guidelines for Custom Story Level Design

[PathOS]

Level Design and Gameplay are of course inexorably linked together no matter what. The trick is to try and not make things too obvious to the player.

I think we can all recognize the games which we played where we could instantly tell as soon as we came to a new area, that "oh, there's going to be a lot of enemies/monsters appearing here", due to the layout and props placed around (this has been so obvious in AAA games like Mass Effect and other over-the-shoulder shooters, or Adventures like Uncharted), and the trick is to be less obvious about that.

I think in SOMA, Omicron was the most successful area keeping me tense and so sure that something was going to jump out at any moment. That world design was structured and presented in such a way to keep the atmosphere super oppressive and scary, with all the dead bodies littered everywhere, the fact that the place was in Quarantine, and "lifting the Quarantine" made you wonder if you were going to set free what was under guard?

It all depends what you're trying to accomplish. If your goal is to focus on enemy encounters solely then you may be more inclined not to put too much care into such considerations.