PLANETOID PIONEERS: Creating a Level!

PLANETOID PIONEERS: Creating a Level!

THEORY: DESIGNING A LEVEL Super Mario Bros. Source: Flickr Originally coders were the ones who created levels in video games, nowadays level designing is its own profession The Level Designer may define: The shape of large surfaces Where scripted events occur Where the game s characters and resources are The start and end of a level The aesthetics and theme of a level The pathfinding nodes of characters and how they react to events in the game Most early levels usually introduce the game mechanics (such as in Super Mario Bros) and later levels require you to master the game s mechanics. This lesson provides a discussion on games and the wishes of the students. Many students may dream of making games but possess little knowledge of how many skills and work it takes to make a game. Programming and art are common ways to find work in the games industry. The third option is game design. The CV of a games designer begins with card and board games created during the formative years and modifications made to existing games. If students try out all of these different skills, they may find they have gifts they didn t even know existed. Discuss with the students: What kind of rules are in the games you play? (Note: This doesn t only apply to digital games. When children play, even their play has rules and level design. )

What kind of game mechanics can you find in the games you play? (For example: What happens when Mario jumps to hit the question mark cube? What are the mushrooms for?) Tell the class: The game designer is, in commercial game projects, a leading figure who determines the game s common rules. The level designer does the same work in smaller game projects, because he invents the rules which the computer is programmed to follow. You can tell about the mechanics of the Super Mario Bros. game to demonstrate how video game rules can work. Alternatively, you can list the rules of the game together with the students. The fundamental game mechanics of Super Mario Bros. are as follows: Mario is threatened by dangers in his immediate surroundings. Failing to jump over a chasm or running into an enemy expends a life and the player has to start the level from the beginning. If you run out of lives, the game is over. The player should jump into the question mark boxes to collect coins, which grant extra lives. Occasionally the question mark boxes produce mushrooms, which make Mario bigger. A bigger Mario is an easier target to hit for the enemies, but can take one hit. If he is hit, he becomes the small version again.

Level design is the placement of objects in the game s world, such as the chasms you have jump across. Some boxes can produce a flame flower, which allows Mario to throw fireballs from his hands, clearing away dangerous enemies from a distance. The level design creates new challenges and forces the player apply skills they have learned through the course of the game. Some of the game s mechanics only involve a specific level, but usually the goal is to slowly make the mechanics more complex as the game carries on. For example, Mario encounters cannons and fireball-breathing plants. Image Source: Super Mario Bros Pixel Art. Flickr. - Theory: This lesson teaches your students the basics of level design and how to apply these skills to Planetoid Pioneers. - Tasks: The students continue learning game modification by modifying their copy of Planetoid Pioneers. - Discuss & Tasks: These topics focus on level design and game design overall.

THEORY: DESIGNING A LEVEL Metroid. Source: Wikipedia Setting, location and theme? New York Bridge, Underneath, Nuclear Winter Set of Features What do you want your player to experience? Reference and Research Set design and prop reference. Objectives, Obstacles and Set Pieces What can happen in the environment? Focal Points Landmarks. Draw the layout 2D sketch of the level for Planetoid Pioneers List of things List the work you need to do to make the level work? You can continue the conversation on how levels are designed. The examples of the slide are hints from www.worldofleveldesign.com with slight alterations. In practice, a school project does not require the organization of a real video game company, but even a little organization goes a long way. Ask the students: Think of the games you ve played. What kind of elements can you find in the game s levels? (Note: The answers can be something such as traps, monsters, floor and so on. If someone says that they don t know, you can ask the students to consider the cat and mouse game. What kind of elements can you find in cat and mouse?) Tell the students that game elements can be either static

opponents (floors, walls, spikes, pits) or dynamic opponents (all scripted opponents, mobile traps, monsters and puzzles). This lesson primarily focuses on static opponents and design in Planetoid Pioneers. Sources on Level Design READ: How to Design Levels for a Platformer READ (Optional): How to Plan Level Designs and Game Environments in 11 Steps WATCH (Optional): How to design a 2D Game Level (2 21) Image Source: In the first Metroid game, the player controls protagonist Samus Aran who fights alien monsters on the fictional planet Zebes. Wikipedia

THEORY: CREATING A LEVEL How to design your own level and how to make one in Planetoid Pioneers Planetoid Pioneers is a game which focuses on modifying its content. This is known as modding (program modification). Planetoid Pioneers benefits from a built-in suite of modding tools, which means that the game can be modded while playing it without a separate editor (as is the norm when modding games). Adding new graphics and assets to the game is easy and the scripting language Lua enables learning more than just the basics of programming.

THEORY: EDITING A SCENE b) a) d) c) The next slides once again feature step-by-step instructions. These instructions can be skipped if the game is familiar to the students, but for review it s a good idea to go through them, even if only quickly. A. B. C. Open the game and go into the editing mode by pressing F2. Open the Scene Library by pressing F5. Select the Blank Planetoid by double-clicking it. The new planetoid should open in the window. Move into the Editor and make sure you are in the SCENE menu (The green ball or 1 on the numpad) Rename the scene (e.g. My New Scene ). When the scene has a new name, the game creates a new planetoid with that name in the library.

A. Save the Scene by pressing Save Scene.

THEORY: EDITING A SCENE Suggest to the students to continue in the Edit mode and find the Layers segment beneath Scene. Afterwards, tell the students to press the Unlock All Layers button. The level of a game object can be changed with the two round buttons in the modification tools (see the image above). The Layers section has a table, which may look more frightening than it truly is! The options and controls of the table are: + Create new layer Visible Change the visibility of the selected layer Lock Determining whether the layer is editable and movable

Index Which layer the object is on (Minus is farther away, plus in front of the pioneer. Pioneer is in the layer 0.) TOs The number of Terrain Objects Notes A place for potential notes you may wish to make Note! You can change the direction of the screen by turning following gravity on and off from the compass in the bottom left section of the screen.

THEORY: EDITING A SCENE Tell the students to create a new level element in the game, so we can try bending it with a Bézier curve. Make sure the students are in the SCENE editing mode (press numpad 1) You can create a new terrain object: 1. 2. 3. 4. Choose the Texture Library (F3) Click on the object Click on the level Press Insert You can edit this new terrain object as long as it is unlocked.

The next goal is to bend the object with a Bézier curve. 1. 2. 3. 4. Click on the terrain object Choose the Bézier curve tool by selecting the image of the slightly misshapen box Twist the object into the shape of your liking Leave the editing mode and test the game. You ll notice that pioneer can collide with objects that have collide on, even if they are in different layer. Note: You can edit the terrain usually without restarts. If you edit the object underneath the pioneer or turn the collision off, the object becomes matterless and the pioneer drop through into the planet s core.

THEORY: EDITING A SCENE Tell the students to test object placement into the background with the buttons in the bottom left corner of the tools. Suggest that they remove the collidable tick in the Physics section (pictured). Suggest the students to also save the scene. Note! The objects in the background work per the rules of the layer table.

THEORY: ADDING OBJECTS TO A SCENE Let the students know that if the students want to bring dynamic objects to the game (that exist in the level as soon as it begins) they must set them as so in a different editor s Activity tab. The Activity tab the objects that belong to the planetoid have frames around them. 1. 2. 3. 4. Open the Activity tab (Numpad 8) Open the blueprint library: F6 Select Fauna Bird Normal and bring it onto the screen (the letter F, click on the screen and press insert). Note: You can enable the scripted behaviour here! Save the Scene in the editor s Activity window and reload it (F9)

Note: The bird should work and attack you. If the bird flies away from the planetoid it is incorrectly set in the blueprint tab instead of the activity tab! (While the game is running you can add objects to it). The Activity tab the objects that belong to the planetoid have frames around them.

THEORY: SAVING YOUR WORK Note: Planetoid Pioneers saves all scripts, scenes and objects as images. The students can copy these images if they wish and send them to one another as email attachments. Below is a list of the directories of these elements: Scenes: /Scenes Objects: /Blueprints Scripts: /Scripts/Blueprints (they have the same name as objects) Particle systems: /ParticleSystems Files used as the game s graphics can be found in the following directories:

/Texture /Terrain /Particles

PLAY: LESSON GOAL The goal is to create a new asteroid in Planetoid Pioneers. You can use earlier designs. Remember to include enemies for the pioneer and background graphics on different layers. Leave this slide open while the students are playing! Tell the students that the goal is to design their own asteroid. This assignment can be completed in groups or on their own. This assignment can also be assigned as homework or combined with an arts lesson: for example, the students can create graphics during arts class and move them to the game as images. While the students are working, you can help the students who have problems with the editor. Discuss what kind of a level would be good and follow the process of the groups and individuals. You can monitor student progress in the game in

Teachergaming Desk. In this activity, we recommend that you go around the class and follow the creative process of the students. Some of the students will likely need help and might need to recreate the Pioneer after their initial attempts.

SHARE & DISCUSS What kind of elements were in the levels you made? Did the levels have a theme or story? Did you use the game s graphics or did you import your own graphics to the game? What kind of backgrounds did you make? How many layers did you use? These are discussion topics so you can get the students talking about today s gaming session. Incite thought and discussion so you can lead up to the next slide.

SHARE & DISCUSS What kind of problems did you run across while designing your level? What kind of organization would it require to create a level for a commercial project? What kind of things can you make with the Planetoid Pioneers editor? What can t you do? A common problem with level editing is that students may run out of ideas. This means that they must simply design the level beforehand, because game creation is difficult without prior planning. Clear organization helps. You can tell the students that many game designers settle on the theme first and then scour the Internet for references on the subject for more ideas.

SHARE & DISCUSS: ADDITIONAL TASKS As homework, design a dynamic object for the level you created. It can be a trap or a mobile part of the level. If you want scripting challenges you can try designing enemies and modding. If there is time, you can allow the students to explore the game freely. The students can also think of new levels, equipment and enemies and other new objects to the game.