World Design for 2D Action-Adventures

Christopher Totten is an award-winning game designer and an Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of the Animation Game Design program at Kent State University. He is also the founder of the studios Pie For Breakfast, LLC and Team Nemo, Inc., which has created games for mobile, PC, tabletop, Game Boy, and the Nintendo Switch. He holds a Master's Degree in Architecture with a concentration in digital media from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC and is a lifetime member of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). Chris’s games and community work explore the intersections between games and the arts. He is a founder of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) Arcade and has created games based on art, literature, and works of animation, including the award-winning games La Mancha and Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends. For this work, he won the Faculty of Excellence Award for Innovation at IndieCade Horizons 2022. He is the author of An Architectural Approach to Level Design, and Game Character Creation in Blender and Unity. He is also the editor of the collected volume, Level Design: Processes and Experiences. Adrian Sandoval is a video game designer, writer, and professor of game production and history. His work spans nearly fifteen years, with titles published across platforms such as the Nintendo DS, PC and mobile. Currently, he is the lead designer on the upcoming Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends game for PC and Nintendo Switch, and the current chair for the Philadelphia chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).

0.1 Introduction. 0.2 Downloading and Installing GB Studio and Related Software. 1.1 Structures for Exploratory Gameplay. 1.2 Planning “Tools” for 2D Action-Adventures. 2.1 Common Gameplay Mechanisms. 2.2 Building Basic Gameplay Mechanisms. 3.1 Planning Your World. 3.2 Building Sprites, Tilesets, and Backgrounds. 4.1 Tutorials and Openings in Action-Adventure Games. 4.2 Creating Scenes, Dialogue, NPCs, and Cutscenes. 5.1 Puzzle and Encounter Design. 5.2 Let’s Build a Dungeon