research-article

A framework for analysis of 2D platformer levels

Authors:

Gillian Smith,

Mee Cha,

Jim WhiteheadAuthors Info & Claims

Sandbox '08: Proceedings of the 2008 ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on Video games

Pages 75 - 80

https://doi.org/10.1145/1401843.1401858

Published: 09 August 2008 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

Levels are the space where a player explores the rules and mechanics of a game; as such, good level design is critical to the game design process. While there are many broad design principles, level design is inherently genre-specific due to the wide variety of rules and types of challenge found between genres. Determining genre-specific design principles requires an in-depth analysis of games within the genre. We present such an analysis for the 2D platformer genre, examining level components and structure with a view to better understanding their level design. We then use this analysis to present a model for platformer levels, specifically focusing on areas of challenge. Our framework provides a common vocabulary for these items and provides level designers with a method for thinking about elements of platformers and how to compose them to create interesting and challenging levels.

References

[1]

Adams, E., and Rollings, A. 2007. Fundamentals of Game Design. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[2]

Bjork, S., and Holopainen, J. 2004. Patterns in Game Design. Charles River Media, ch. 2, 7--32.

Google Scholar

[3]

Bleszinski, C. 2000. The Art and Science of Level Design. http://www.cliffyb.com/art-sci-ld.html.

Google Scholar

[4]

Boutros, D. 2006. A Detailed Cross-Examination of Yesterday and Today's Best-Selling Platform Games. Gamasutra (August). http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060804/boutros_01.shtml.

Google Scholar

[5]

Byrne, E. 2005. Game Level Design. Charles River Media. Co, P. 2006. Level Design for Games: Creating Compelling Game Experiences. New Riders.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[6]

Compton, K., and Mateas, M. 2006. Procedural Level Design for Platform Games. In Proceedings of the 2nd Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference.

Google Scholar

[7]

Desurvire, H., Caplan, M., and Toth, J. 2004. Using Heuristics to Evaluate the Playability of Games. CHI '04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (April).

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[8]

Feil, J., and Scattergood, M. 2005. Beginning Game Level Design. Thompson Course Technology PTR.

Google Scholar

[9]

Iyer, V., Bilmes, J., Write, M., and Wessel, D. 1997. A Novel Representation for Rhythmic Structure. In Proceedings of the 23rd International Computer Music Conference, 97--100.

Google Scholar

[10]

Nelson, M. 2007. Breaking Down Breakout: System and Level Design for Breakout-style Games. Gamasutra (August). http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1630/breaking_down_breakout_system_and_.php.

Google Scholar

[11]

Nicollet, V. 2004. Difficulty in Dexterity-Based Platform Games. GameDev.net (March). http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article2055.asp.

Google Scholar

[12]

Rothstein, W. 1989. Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music. Schirmer Books, New York, ch. 1, 3--15.

Google Scholar

[13]

Salen, K., and Zimmerman, E. 2004. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, ch. 23, 313--327.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[14]

Zagal, J. P., Mateas, M., Fernandez-Vara, C., Hochhalter, B., and Lichti, N. 2005. Towards an Ontological Language for Game Analysis. In Proceedings of the Digital Interactive Games Research Association Conferences (DiGRA 2005).

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Andriano A(2024) Enjoying the Uncertainty. How Dark Souls Performs Incompleteness Through Narrative, Level Design and Gameplay Games and Culture10.1177/15554120241226837Online publication date: 6-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120241226837
Chakraborttii CFerreirra L(2024)Towards Generating Surprising Content in 2D Platform GamesProceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3649921.3659848(1-7)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649921.3659848
Brandner TMußmann MMammen S(2024)Analysis and Generation of Flow in 3D Jump’n’Run Games2024 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645536(1-4)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645536
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

A framework for analysis of 2D platformer levels

Recommendations

Can "Gaming 2.0" help design "Serious Games"?: a comparative study
Sandbox '10: Proceedings of the 5th ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Video Games

The "Serious Games" field raises a specific need. People without professional game design skills, such as teachers, corporate trainers, therapists and advertising professionals, request tools that could allow them to create or modify such games. This ...
WORLD4: Designing Ambiguity for First-Person Exploration Games
CHI PLAY '18: Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

In this paper we present the design and evaluation of a first-person walker digital game called WORLD4. Walkers are a sub-genre of 3D games that typically include minimal player interaction, slow paced game play, and ambiguous goals. Walking is the ...
Design patterns in FPS levels
FDG '10: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

Level designers create gameplay through geometry, AI scripting, and item placement. There is little formal understanding of this process, but rather a large body of design lore and rules of thumb. As a result, there is no accepted common language for ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

Sandbox '08: Proceedings of the 2008 ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on Video games

August 2008

183 pages

ISBN:9781605581736

DOI:10.1145/1401843

Conference Chair:
David Schwartz
Rochester Institute of Technology
,
Program Chairs:
Karen Schrier
Scholastic/Columbia University
,
Chris Swain
USC School of Cinematic Arts
,
Michael Wagner
Danube University Krems

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 09 August 2008

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

Sandbox '08

Sponsor:

SIGGRAPH

Sandbox '08: An ACM SIGGRAPH Video Game Symposium

August 9 - 10, 2008

California, Los Angeles

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

52
Total Citations
View Citations
1,284
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)146
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)4

Reflects downloads up to 25 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Andriano A(2024) Enjoying the Uncertainty. How Dark Souls Performs Incompleteness Through Narrative, Level Design and Gameplay Games and Culture10.1177/15554120241226837Online publication date: 6-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120241226837
Chakraborttii CFerreirra L(2024)Towards Generating Surprising Content in 2D Platform GamesProceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3649921.3659848(1-7)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649921.3659848
Brandner TMußmann MMammen S(2024)Analysis and Generation of Flow in 3D Jump’n’Run Games2024 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645536(1-4)Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG60054.2024.10645536
Aladin MIsmail A(2024)Principle Structure to Create a 2D Game Level EditorEncyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games10.1007/978-3-031-23161-2_492(1477-1482)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23161-2_492
Maram SPfau JDodechani JSeif El-Nasr M(2023)A Visual Ethnographic Study at Cultural Spaces to Identify Character Creation OpportunitiesProceedings of the 18th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3582437.3582445(1-12)Online publication date: 12-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582437.3582445
Cuerdo MMahajan AMao JMelcer E(2023)Try Again?: A Macro-Level Taxonomy of the Challenge and Failure Process in Games2023 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)10.1109/CoG57401.2023.10333199(1-8)Online publication date: 21-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG57401.2023.10333199
Rosa MCastanho Ce Silva TSarmet MJacobi R(2023)Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment by Performance and Player Profile in Platform GameEntertainment Computing – ICEC 202310.1007/978-981-99-8248-6_1(3-16)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8248-6_1
Karlsson TBrusk JEngström H(2022)Level Design Processes and Challenges: A Cross Section of Game DevelopmentGames and Culture10.1177/1555412022113922918:6(821-849)Online publication date: 20-Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221139229
Atmaja PSugiarto (2022)Using Genetic Algorithm for Wide yet Even Scattering of Game Objects: Applications on Irregular Levels and Involving Multiple Objects2022 IEEE 8th Information Technology International Seminar (ITIS)10.1109/ITIS57155.2022.10010220(301-306)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ITIS57155.2022.10010220
Aladin MIsmail A(2022)Principle Structure to Create a 2D Game Level EditorEncyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games10.1007/978-3-319-08234-9_492-1(1-6)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08234-9_492-1
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Abstract

References

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Can "Gaming 2.0" help design "Serious Games"?: a comparative study

WORLD4: Designing Ambiguity for First-Person Exploration Games

Design patterns in FPS levels

Comments

Information

Published In

Sponsors

Publisher

Publication History

Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Conference

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Login options

Full Access

View options

PDF

eReader

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media

Affiliations