Game Design

Sk8er Skull, David Norton Mar 2025

Sk8er Skull, David Norton

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

Sk8r Skull is a single player video game where players must traverse the environment as a skull on a skateboard, in an effort to defeat the wizard who has stolen the rest of the skull’s body. Players must move, destroy, and grind their way through the level in order to reach the wizard. By traversing the area, players will learn the mechanics of the game, as well as some of the in-game world’s backstory. The production of Sk8r Skull was driven by examining game feel, and the “flow” state.

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Seasons Of Change, Ray Vergara Jan 2024

Seasons Of Change, Ray Vergara

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 …

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The Foreboding Campaign System, Michael Fetters Dec 2022

The Foreboding Campaign System, Michael Fetters

Theses

This project creates a new campaign setting compatible with the Dungeons and Dragons system utilizing the SRD Open Game License content as a starting point. The campaign setting created establishes mechanics allowing for narrative interaction between the past and present timeline of events in the world of Lunaria. This new system, entitled The Foreboding, utilizes a shift mechanic to alter the player characters in several possible ways, ranging from changes in race or character history to interactions with past time periods and events that alter the present timeline of the narrative. New character options for race and class were also …

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Fractured Sky: A Procedurally-Generated Tactical Role-Playing Game, Booker Martin Apr 2022

Fractured Sky: A Procedurally-Generated Tactical Role-Playing Game, Booker Martin

Honors Thesis

Relevant Links:

Game Website: https://fracturedsky.ml

Project Repository: https://github.com/Booker-M/Capstone

Project Description:

Fractured Sky is a tactical role-playing game with a story that hinges on the balance between making moral decisions and pursuing power. This game will be one of the first of its kind to feature fully procedurally-generated levels in which every component of the level can be interacted with by the player.

Each level will be procedurally-generated and, thus, entirely unique and never experienced before by any player. Because each tile and object is placed through procedural-generation, it can act as its own entity independently of the surrounding tiles. As …

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Indeterminate Sample Sequencing In Virtual Reality, Chase Mitchusson Oct 2020

Indeterminate Sample Sequencing In Virtual Reality, Chase Mitchusson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The VR Sequencer is a tool for composing and performing music which takes advantage of spatial conﬁguration of 3-D objects to generate looping sequences. This project combines dice-rolling with omnidirectional playheads and variable terrain to make a sequencer with indeterminate features in Virtual Reality (VR). A comparison of mapping systems for music games and digital instruments demonstrates a middle ground for interactive music making which the VR Sequencer applies. An inspection of current VR works exhibits a disconnect be- tween VR gamers and experimental musicians. In an attempt to give the gaming community access to experimental music making, the VR …

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(Fun)Ction: Developing Games From A Narrative Standpoint, Julian Barocas Jul 2020

(Fun)Ction: Developing Games From A Narrative Standpoint, Julian Barocas

English and Creative Writing Summer Fellows

My goal with this project has been to deepen my understanding of why people play games, how to make games narratively compelling, and what technical methods are effective in play. This has allowed me to investigate both the technical, scholarly assessments of board game dynamics while also exploring their real-world applications, successes, and weaknesses. Building on my research, my project has culminated in a full prototype of an original board game that has both narrative structure and an engaging gameplay structure. I have also produced a reflection paper on the experience and an annotated bibliography of my research texts and …

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Visions: Chaos In Naango, Katarina J. Klask, Hunter Gibson, Taylor Roseberry, Summer Shigetani, Mattie Coccia, Alena Siu, Caitlin Mihm, Gaston Dondero, Sophie Rudell May 2016