The Level Design Mapping Tool (LDMT): A Planning-Oriented Spreadsheet Framework for Representing Challenge and Pacing in Games

Level design requires designers to articulate intended challenge and pacing before implementation, yet small and educational teams often lack accessible tools for representing these intentions explicitly. This article presents the Level Design Mapping Tool (LDMT), a spreadsheet-based, planning-oriented framework that organizes level segments, mechanics, hazards, support elements, and designer-assigned weights into a visual progression curve. The framework was developed from a targeted literature review and an interpretive comparison of selected platform games and is illustrated through a worked application to one level of Black Evasion. The application demonstrates the structure and internal operation of the framework; it does not constitute an empirical evaluation of player experience, usability, or predictive accuracy. LDMT scores are relative, designer-authored planning indices rather than measurements of perceived difficulty. The framework’s principal contribution is methodological and pedagogical: it offers a transparent, editable, and low-barrier way to document and compare intended challenge and pacing during early-stage level planning. Future work will evaluate inter-designer reliability, usability, and the correspondence between planned challenge profiles and player telemetry.