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My name is Christof Amann (in the forum also known as "Ornestin"),
and here at KRITZELKRATZ I am responsible for the level design.
To give you an insight into the colorful world of a level designer, I'd like to give you a rough explanation of the various steps involved in developing a level for Railroad Pioneer. As the game is set in various federal states of the USA, it has been important to us to incorporate the local conditions of the various states into our work. The historical and geographical elements were particularly important to us, and to find out more about them, we had to carry out some extensive research first: Let me explain this using the example of the campaign mission Kentucky. 1. Research The first step consists of doing research and gathering historical, geographical and political information about the federal state in the 19th century. This includes important political events, such as wars, as well as the features of the countryside and the existing towns in that state. The Internet and the library have been very useful here. 
2. Assigning the landscape setting We work with various landscape settings. Each setting includes the typical elements of a landscape, such as certain textures or specific trees. Each of our levels has such a setting. In my example "Kentucky", the setting is PRAIRIE, as this is best suited for Kentucky in the 19th century. 3. Pre-design Each level is first of all created as a Power Point document (hello to "Mr Power Point" Olli). In Railroad Pioneer we work with a field system (i.e., the map is divided into many invisible fields), so it's an obvious approach to divide the levels into fields in the planning stage as well. The next step is probably the most important one for a good mission: Determining the location of towns and resource fields. The position of the towns in the level is, of course, modeled on the true geographical position of the towns in the federal state. Not so the resource fields. Here, I take care that every player can build up an efficient and profitable trade circuit in the mission without getting into any dead ends. Also, I try to make sure that the mission build-ups aren't too similar. This point is also already taken into consideration at the pre-design stage. Another equally important part of the pre-design is the arrangement of the topographical conditions of the state: where are hills, rivers etc located. These elements are also included here. 
Now we have to enter the level into our level editor. Thanks to a system of coordinates, this is fairly easy, and a 1:1 image of the level is taking shape. At this early stage, graphics or elements play no part whatsoever – the only important feature here is playability. The order is always: towns, resource fields, topography. Another particularly important element at this stage is the design of the towns. For example, I must figure out where to put which personnel, where to have an industrial quarter, and much more. From now on, there is one particular thing the level designer needs to do: Play the level again and again in order to recognize and eliminate weaknesses and bugs as soon as possible! Incidentally, all of this has already taken about 5 hours. 
Now objects are assigned to the fields. To that end, we have created groups of objects which we can use to include e.g. a complete building at one click. The first trees, rocks, etc., are also put in at this stage, because they can be used to define and embellish certain areas in the level (e.g., where to put in a forest). At this stage, mountains, hills and rivers are also roughly put in – roughly means: the size and course is defined and put in by the level design department and later developed further by the graphics department (sorry, the heights are missing on this screen shot). 
The next step is not only to make the level nice to look at; this is where the level gets its textures. As described under item 2, texturizing is done according to the given landscape setting. This is mainly about making the level more attractive, to give it an appealing look and to furnish it with its character. In addition to that, this is where the level designers create or work out game elements by texturizing. The best example here are the paths all over the level that are meant to lead the player to new important locations. Only 50% of the textures are done by the level designers; the rest is done by the graphics department, which at this stage also completes the decorative objects on that level (such as trees, rocks, etc.). At this point, I have already invested 8 to 10 hours of work into our level. 
Last but absolutely NOT least, the level must, of course, be tested. Even though at this point I have played the level time and again and have constantly improved it, it has yet to go through the final test. This is about finding bugs, balancing game elements and, above all, fulfilling the intended mission target. As KRITZELKRATZ is a very small (but brilliant!) team, the level design is also responsible for testing the level. At this stage, the cooperation between the programming, graphics and level design departments is particularly close in order to steadily improve the game and the levels. Well, that was it from my perspective. I hope you found this tour through our various working stages interesting and that you will stay with us! Christof Almost finished: 
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