Ctrl + Create: Empowering Creative Control in AI-Driven Rapid Level Design
Level design is one of the most labor-intensive processes in video game development – especially because communicating a creative vision across designers, artists, writers, and gameplay engineers requires extensive iterative refinement. Traditionally, this involves rounds of white boxing and set dressing, which distributes labor effectively but limits rapid exploration and creative experimentation. Recent advances in AI-driven image generation offer timely opportunities to transform these workflows, but risk losing control to the model’s interpretation and capabilities. We investigate the impact of generative AI on designers’ control, expressiveness, and efficiency through a mixed-methods study (n=20), comparing drawing (full control), text-to-image (full AI), and our approach: a visualization pipeline combining generative AI with user-centered spatial control. It succeeded in enhancing visual expressiveness and sense of control over bare AI, matched manual drawing (without necessitating advanced skills), and enabled faster iteration – highlighting the potential of giving back control to creative visionaries.