Level designer vs. environmental artist, whats the difference?

[thanoz]

Go with what you know. Figure out what type of game you play the most and what you can emulate the most. If all you play is multiplayer first person shooters and you try to design a singleplayer puzzle level like Tomb Raider, you're going to be out of your element and uninspired. If you love the type you're working on, you can really spend some time getting your brain into the game and figuring out WHY it is so fun, and why the levels in it work for you. Then you can go about emulating those features and/or improving on them.

Also, play a large variety of games, sign up for some kinda monthly rental thing. Game designers and level designers MUST play tons of games or they don't have the proper perspective to give gamers a familiar experience. If you can find a job as a 3rd party game tester for Sony, Xbox, or Nintendo in your local area, then take that, because that'll be a good 45+ hours a week of testing on about 50 games a year. It's really boring work playing games all day but it's very educational.

The game designer friends I have own freakin everything.