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30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
Design Game Design Level Design

How to Design Game Levels &Adventures for Video and Tabletop

How to design entertaining episodes for video and tabletop games: levels, stages, adventures, scenarios, missions . . .
Rating: 4.2 out of 54.2 (20 ratings)
179 students
Created by Lewis Pulsipher
Last updated 6/2018
English
English [Auto]
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What you'll learn

  • What it is and isn't - and why you'd do it
  • Questions you must consider when you make a level/adventure
  • Producing the goods - obstacles, objectives, scale, linearity, style, mood, etc.
  • Documentation
  • Campaigns

Requirements

  • You need to have some knowledge of game design, e.g. from my book or Learning Game Design audiovisual class
  • You need to know how to play games that use levels/adventures

Description

(Note: This course will never be deeply discounted: it is not part of Udemy's "kamikaze marketing." If it were, I'd have priced it three or even four times higher.)

This is a class about how to design episodes for games (both video and tabletop) - call it level design or adventure design - rather than how to program them. (Level design is a subset of game design.) There is no instruction in using specific software, for example, but a lot about what to put in the level (and not put in it). Adventures (for D&D) preceded video game levels, and levels follow the same principles as those adventures.

In games that require episodes (stages, missions, levels, adventures), the episode designer is the person who delivers the enjoyment to the players.

Entire books have been written about level design, though much of the material in these books describes how to manipulate a specific level editor such as Unreal III. There's not so much in these books about the actual design of levels/adventures. This course is strictly about design, not production, though we do discuss documentation.

Udemy says the course is 8 hours. It's actually half that, they count as four hours the file I supply that contains all the slides used in the videos.

Who this course is for:

  • There are two major audiences: those who want to make levels for video games,
  • and those who want to design adventures for tabletop RPGs
  • It may also help those making scenarios for wargames

Course content

6 sections • 73 lectures • 10h 21m total length

  • Preview02:13
  • Preview02:33
  • Preview03:59
  • Preview04:36
  • You'll understand this better if you know some game design
    03:49
  • Platformers? No.
    02:24
  • Start writing things down NOW
    04:01
  • Anonymous Entry Survey
    00:09

  • Preview04:43
  • Preview04:46
  • Who is the audience, and what is the player going to DO?
    04:00
  • Preview1 page
  • The process of creating a level/adventure
    04:40
  • Level design documents (video games only)
    02:31
  • The Joys of Game Design
    09:33

  • Originating a level/adventure
    04:41
  • Strategic or tactical?
    03:10
  • Preview02:03
  • Open versus linear levels/adventures
    02:58
  • Story/objective
    04:21
  • The Role of story - from my "Learning Game Design" course
    06:21
  • Characterization and Role-playing
    02:27
  • Taking control away from the player (e.g. cut-scenes)
    02:30
  • Realism, fidelity, suspension of disbelief - not what it used to be
    06:32
  • Are you a game designer or a fiction writer?
    07:39
  • Style and Mood
    05:25
  • Tutorials
    01:51
  • Player versus player/"Multiplayer"
    05:53
  • Self-assessment at the halfway point
    10 questions
  • Have you been writing things down?
    00:13

  • Obstacles animate and inanimate
    06:44
  • "The Map"
    06:52
  • Puzzles
    04:25
  • Quests
    07:19
  • "Bosses"
    04:41
  • The Notion of "Bosses" is for Video Games, not Tabletop
    03:11
  • "Loot"
    03:20
  • Practice: list the elements you'll use in a level/adventure
    1 page
  • Do's and Don'ts for Designing RPG Monsters, part 1
    06:06
  • Do's and Don'ts for Designing RPG Monsters, part 2
    06:39
  • Map-drawing Practice
    00:20
  • Preview02:53
  • Phases, Acts, and the Hero's Journey - from my class Learning Game Design
    05:56
  • Game Balance
    03:32
  • Example of a fantasy game level overview
    2 pages
  • Practice - write your own overview of a level/adventure
    00:04
  • Co-operative play
    05:39
  • Dos and Don'ts, Part 1
    09:23
  • Do's and Dont's, Part 2
    05:25
  • Warren Spector's "Deus Ex Rules of Roleplaying"
    09:47
  • Preview04:12
  • Production clarity and document editing
    08:00
  • Software assist (not level editors)
    05:56

  • How campaigns differ from single (standalone?) levels/adventures
    03:53
  • Example of campaign document
    5 pages
  • Text Adventures / MUDs
    04:35
  • Wargame scenarios
    03:19
  • Situations versus Specifics, Independence versus Handholding
    02:59
  • State of the tabletop RPG market
    04:01
  • Are tabletop adventures written more to be read than to be played?
    02:49
  • Conclusion and where to from here
    03:08
  • Self-assessment (five questions)
    5 questions
  • Exit Survey
    00:11
  • 10 "Need to Knows" about Role-playing Game Design, pt 1
    06:26
  • 10 "Need to Knows" about Role-playing Game Design, pt 2
    06:20
  • 10 "Need to Knows" about making a game a GOOD game
    09:04
  • 10 "Need to Knows" about designing a GOOD game, Part 2
    11:42
  • All the Slides
    266 pages

  • Preview20 pages
  • Your Game Design Portfolio - from "Learning Game Design" class
    01:48
  • How the industry works - from "Get a Job in the Video Game Industry"
    07:35
  • Rules-emergent versus Progressive Games - from "Learning Game Design"
    04:49
  • Preview08:24
  • Lew's Games, as of August 2015
    20 pages
  • Preview04:40

Instructor

Lewis Pulsipher
Commercially Published Game Designer, College Teacher
Lewis Pulsipher
  • 4.0 Instructor Rating
  • 244 Reviews
  • 19,188 Students
  • 11 Courses

Dr. Lewis Pulsipher (Wikipedia: "Lewis Pulsipher"; "Britannia (board game)"; "Archomental" ) is the designer of half a dozen commercially published boardgames. His game "Britannia" is described in an Armchair General review "as one of the great titles in the world of games." Britannia was also one of the 100 games highlighted in the book "Hobby Games: the 100 Best". He has over 17,000 classroom hours of teaching experience including teaching video game design and production, and over 20 years of part-time graduate teaching experience.

His book "Game Design: How to Create Video and Tabletop Games, Start to Finish" (McFarland) focuses on practical advice for beginning game designers, about how you actually create and complete game designs. He also contributed to the books "Tabletop: Analog Game Design," "Hobby Games: the 100 Best," "Family Games: the 100 Best." His game design blog has been active since 2004, and he is a contributor and "expert blogger" on Gamasutra, the #1 site for professional video game developers.

His latest published game is the 2011 reissue with additions of "Dragon Rage," originally published in 1982. Three new versions of Britannia, including a 90-120 minute version and a diceless version, are forthcoming, as well as several other games from Worthington Publishing and others. His Viking adventure game "Sea Kings" was published by Worthington in August 2015, and the video game "Lew Pulsipher's Doomstar" on Steam in September 2016.

Lew has a Ph.D. in military and diplomatic history from Duke University, from ancient days when degrees in media, computer networking, or game design did not exist--nor did IBM PCs. In 2012 he was a speaker at the East Coast Game Conference, PrezCon, Origins Game Fair, and World Boardgaming Championships. Long ago he was contributing editor for White Dwarf and Dragon magazines, and publisher of various game fanzines. In 2013 he was Industry Insider Guest of Honor at GenCon, and in 2014 is again speaker at the ECGC.

Game design blog and teach game design blogs are on blogspot

"Expert blogger", Gamasutra

former contributing editor, White Dwarf, Dragon, Space Gamer, etc.

former publisher, Supernova, Blood and Iron, Sweep of History, etc.


"Always do right--this will gratify some and astonish the rest." --Mark Twain

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