Minecraft as level editor?

Use whatever works, imho.

I wouldn't have considered minecraft, but eg generate a number of small images with a program, then use paint to compose the scene likely also works.

Tiled editor may work too.

In the past I once had the problem of placing a number of buildings in a game. The trouble was the buildings all had different sizes, and the area wasn't a rectangle either. In the end I used some paper with squares on them to cut out each building, as well as the edge of the area. Then I used an empty table to figure out how to place the buildings against the edge.

@Alberth “Use whatever works” is the ultimate mantra, I guess. I just have such poor sense of scale that very little does work, so I am hoping that others know the feeling and can steer me ob a better path. I can totally see myself struggling with what you described, too!

Minecraft is quite quick and easy to use for certain stuff. It really depends on what specific thing you need. It is usable for houses, rooms, etc., I guess, but terrible for others.

Working with pens and paper is also quite useful, yeah. I recommend combining pencils for the initial sketch and refinement and those fine-liner pens for the clear visibility and strong outlines.

Paper cut-outs are good for re-arranging things. For some things, you can also work with pop-up art for prototyping. This video contains some neat examples for visual prototyping using paper (especially the simpsons section got quite creative):

here's a screenshot of that:

Disclaimer: one-page design documents are not real design documents. They are quick condensed reminders for your team and try to capture, but do not replace detailed specifications.

@RmbRT My problem is my sense of scale, without “standing there” I have no idea of how big things are or should be. Minecraft helps that. Without that experience, the other options sadly do not work for me.

The video looks cool, think I'll pop a sugar drink and relax watching it for a bit, thanks!!

Sizes are indeed tricky to understand. I tend to use guestimate sizes of real-world objects around me to make a judgement. In that way you have an abstract number size as well as a concrete example to compare with.

For much larger sizes, you can measure sizes at a map, and then physically go there to get an impression of how big it is. At even larger sizes, at some point the time needed to travel through it becomes a way to measure size.

I mostly use a humanoid character object, and a 1m grid to get a sense of scale.