Level Design

Christopher Totten is the Game Artist in Residence at American University and the founder of independent developer Pie for Breakfast Studios. He is also the founder of the Smithsonian American Art Museum Indie Arcade and an advocate for bringing games to museums and cultural institutions. Totten is an active writer in the game industry, with articles featured in industry journals, chapters in several academic publications, and two books: Game Character Creation in Blender and Unity (Wiley 2012) and An Architectural Approach to Level Design (CRC, 2014.) He has also spoken at GDC China, Foundations Of Digital Games (FDG), East Coast Game Conference, Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference, and Games For Change. He has displayed his games at MAGFest, The Smithsonian Innovation in Art event, and Baltimore Artscape, and Blank Arcade. He has a Masters Degree in Architecture from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Chapter 1. Kamuro Nights: A Personal Retrospective of the Yakuza Series Gavin Greene

Chapter 2. Cracking the Resident Evil Puzzle Box Daniel Johnson

Chapter 3.From Construction to Perception: Three Views of Level Design for Story-Driven Games Huaxin Wei and Chaoguang Wang

Chapter 4. Everything I Learned About Level Design at an Orlesian Ball Heidi McDonald

Chapter 5. Hell, Hyboria, and Disneyland; The Origins and Inspirations of Themed Video Game Level Design Scott Rogers

Chapter 6. Level Design Practices for Independent Games Fares Kayali and Josef Ortner

Chapter 7. Making the Most of Audio in Characterization, Narrative Structure, and Level Design Chanel Summers

Chapter 8. Procedural Content Generation: An Overview Gillian Smith

Chapter 9. P.T. and the Play of Stillness Brian Upton

Chapter 10. The Illusion of Choice – How to Hide the Linearity of Levels from Players Joao Raza and Benjamin Carter

Chapter 11. Integrating Procedural and Handmade Level Design Dr. Mark R. Johnson

Chapter 12. Level Design Planning for Open World Games Joel Burgess PART 4: TESTING LEVELS

Chapter 13. Play-Personas: Mental Tools for Player-Centered Level Design Alessandro Canossa

Chapter 14. Evaluating Level Design Using Public Events Jonathan Moriarty

Chapter 15. The Rule of 27’s: A Comparative Analysis of 2D Screenspace and Virtual Reality Environment Design Hadar Silverman

Chapter 16. Expression vs. Experience: Balancing Art and Usability Needs in Level Design Christopher W. Totten