Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Game Design Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 21 of 21

Full-Text Articles in Game Design

Stargen - A Procedurally Generated Galaxy For Automated World Building, Christopher B. Del Gesso Jan 2026

Stargen - A Procedurally Generated Galaxy For Automated World Building, Christopher B. Del Gesso

Game Design

StarGen supports mixed-scale generation workflows, including galaxy-wide star distributions, quadrant and sector density visualization, subsector star fields via lazy sector generation, and full star system generation (stars, orbits, planets, moons, and belts) from selected stars or standalone seeded system generation. The tool also supports procedural jump route generation and visualization through a jump-lane pipeline, enabling early exploration of navigable spatial structures for game design.

StarGen is a mixed-initiative authoring tool rather than an autonomous content replacement system. Designers control seeds, galaxy presets, galaxy type (spiral, elliptical, irregular), and structural and density parameters (e.g., arm count, pitch, bulge settings, ellipticity, irregularity, …


Jumpstart Version0.1, Peter Brauninger Oct 2025

Jumpstart Version0.1, Peter Brauninger

Game Design

Game Prototype for Learning the development of a full game


Pearanormal Reporter, Zakayla Bailey Oct 2025

Pearanormal Reporter, Zakayla Bailey

Game Design

Pearanormal Reporter is a mystery/horror game with a fun twist. Play as a paranormal reporter, Peary the Pear, to figure out what happened at Fruitington Manor. Explore the manor to find clues about the suspect, location and cursed item used. Get all information correct to win the game. Just be careful of the evil Orange Entity that roams the manor. Game created for GAM 56800. Built in Unity.


Penguin Run, Lillian Mantz Oct 2025

Penguin Run, Lillian Mantz

Game Design

Penguin Run is a flappy bird inspired platformer. The goal is to collect coins and avoid the ice spikes.


Dungeon Escape, Andrew Begemann Oct 2025

Dungeon Escape, Andrew Begemann

Game Design

This game was developed during a GAM 56800 course taken in the first half of the 2025 school year. The game prototype features a player that moves though a procedurally generating dungeon collecting potions and fending off enemies until finding the key to the portal that lets them leave the dungeon. The whole game development process was followed, from game design document creation to compiling an installer/uploading to itch.io, as an in-depth study. Free assets were used from the unity assets store and chatGPT was used occasionally to supplement coding/scripting needs. The player character was modeled specifically for unity animation …


Unchained, Shawn Roberts Jr Oct 2025

Unchained, Shawn Roberts Jr

Game Design

No abstract provided.


Aliens Over Earth, Stephen D. Ragsdale Oct 2025

Aliens Over Earth, Stephen D. Ragsdale

Game Design

Welcome to Aliens Over Earth! In this classic style platformer game, you play as an alien invading Earth for resources necessary to save her planet! You get to fly around in an alien saucer and search for the mysterious blueprint book, while defending against guided missile launchers, and collecting satellite dishes that have the materials the alien requires. But don’t be too careless in your pursuit of saving your planet because there are still Earth’s defenses and they are very capable and will not hesitate to take you down. Although if your ship gets overwhelmed and destroyed by the encroaching …


Dungeon Plater, Nala Scott Dec 2024

Dungeon Plater, Nala Scott

Game Design

No abstract provided.


Owl Game, Finn Brown Dec 2024

Owl Game, Finn Brown

Game Design

This is a basic game about flying through some trees in a valley, and flying through hoops.


Grapple Game - Game Development, Alexander Blume Dec 2024

Grapple Game - Game Development, Alexander Blume

Game Design

A first-person time trial based around a grappling mechanic!

Movement system: https://github.com/DaveGameDevelopment

Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/TqERFundlwk


Slime King, Branden Green Dec 2024

Slime King, Branden Green

Game Design

This is a short video game about a smile king who was removed from his thrown, The game entails you, playing the fallen king, completing levels to reach your thrown. The game is in it's early stages and as such many features aren't yet present. Completion of the game occurs when you reach the throne at the top of the second level.


Go Go Ro Bo, Jordan Goodwin Oct 2024

Go Go Ro Bo, Jordan Goodwin

Game Design

Go Go Ro Bo is a proof of concept for a runner-like game. In the game, players move Ro Bo up and down past various obstacles throughout the mall and collect gummy rats.


Candy Costume Royal, Nala Scott Mar 2024

Candy Costume Royal, Nala Scott

Game Design

A board game where player compete to be the best dressed on the board. Players race to make the best outfit and reach the end of the board first.


Treasure Quest, Dani Rosenberger Feb 2024

Treasure Quest, Dani Rosenberger

Game Design

A competitive board game where players are pit against each other to find a lost treasure on a mysterious island. Who will be the first to claim great riches?


Seasons Of Change, Ray Vergara Jan 2024

Seasons Of Change, Ray Vergara

Game Design

Seasons of Change is a Unity-based video game with a spooky, cartoonish aesthetic, inspired by the fall season. Developed within the constraints of Lindenwood University's Game Development course, the project was built upon through structured weekly modules, focusing on game mechanics, level design, interactivity, programming, and audio integration. The game's developmental journey was enriched by extensive research, experimentation, and constructive feedback, resulting in a cohesive final product. Key challenges included adapting Unity's Starter Asset Package, troubleshooting ProBuilder limitations, and debugging interactive elements like audio and UI for various platforms. Despite time constraints and technical hurdles, the iterative development process facilitated …


Mushy's Escape, Maddie Knemeyer Lynch Dec 2023

Mushy's Escape, Maddie Knemeyer Lynch

Game Design

Mushy's Escape is a puzzle based 3D Platformer. This game is a showcase for a game development concept piece.


Spective, Andrew C. Smith Dec 2023

Spective, Andrew C. Smith

Game Design

Video Game, Andrew Smith, Puzzle Action game. Made for Fall 2023 Game Prototype class. In this game, the player must rotate the camera in order to obtain a new perspective and gain more visual information about the layout of the stage in order to avoid enemies, collect objects, and navigate and platform properly, in order to reach the end.


Left And Right, Finn Brown Oct 2023

Left And Right, Finn Brown

Game Design

Left and Right is a choose-your-own-adventure style game developed using Twine as part of a 1 week prototype. This game has the player navigating a town that has been overrun by a mysterious black mush. The player must venture into finding out where this mysterious substance came from and if there is anyway to get rid of it.


Dice, Roger Alms Oct 2023

Dice, Roger Alms

Game Design

This is a dice game where the player predicts whether the next roll of dice will have a higher or lower total than the current total.


On The Way, Shawn Roberts Oct 2023

On The Way, Shawn Roberts

Game Design

On The Way is a board game developed by Shawn Roberts. This game is centered around navigating the game space while performing tasks based on the character chosen. Players must race to finish their task before they can advance around the board.


Miley & Friends, Jake Lesko Oct 2023

Miley & Friends, Jake Lesko

Game Design

Miley & Friends is a board game in which players take one of several dogs on a walk through a park. Along the board's route, players gain happy points through the collection of toys and treats. The player with the most amount of Happy Points at the end of the walk is declared the winner.