Level Design Patterns in 2D Games @adafruit #adafruit #msmakecode
This article on Gamasutra is a fascinating look at the development of a design language and grammar to discuss level design patterns used in 2D video games. One stated hope of the authors for the paper is to help facilitate the discussion among game level designers, both experienced and new, to increase the quality of game levels for the players.
Although the level design patterns we present might be well known to game designers, it is important to formally document them. By doing such, we can facilitate communication between experienced and novice designers, ultimately contributing to the growth and sharing of level design practices. For this purpose, this work aims at formalizing the concept of level design patterns, providing not only valuable resource to novice designers but also groundwork for future study and design of such patterns…
In this post, we describe in detail six level design patterns. These patterns are noticeable across a variety of 2D games. We discuss the principles and motivation behind applying these patterns and show examples of it being used across multiple games. This work does not showcase all potential or even existing level design patterns, choosing instead to focus on some of the most common, with the intent of formalizing the concept and laying the foundation for future research and discussion to extend upon.
The level design patterns formalized here are:
Guidance
Safe Zone
Foreshadowing
Layering
Branching
Pace Breaking
Each pattern includes examples from existing games. These are excellent tips to consider when making your own games using MakeCode Arcade, Arcada, or CircuitPython to play on PyGamer and PyBadge!
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