The document describes the level design workflow for creating a 2D side-scrolling shoot 'em up game with a space theme. It involves creating sprites, objects, rooms, and coding player movement and abilities like shooting lasers. Enemies are added that spawn randomly and fire lasers at the player. Health and scoring systems are implemented, along with particle effects, scrolling backgrounds, and sound effects. The game is thoroughly tested throughout development.

1. Level Design Workflow
I would like to make a 2D side scrolling shoot em’ up game with a space
theme. It will feature a keyboard controlled player and randomly
generated waves of enemies.
First of all, I needed to create a sprite for my character. I chose a
robot sphere to fit the space theme and saved it as a PNG file.
Next, I had to edit the “hit box” and center the sprite. This is so that
when the sprite is inserted into a level, it is centered exactly where I
place it and not in the nearby tile.
I then had to make an object for my player. To do this I clicked the
“objects” tab and selected “Create Object”. This will give the character
its properties such as being solid.

2. Now I need to add events to the character. This includes what keys are
pressed to move the character and what happens if he touches a wall,
etc. To do this I added a step event and selected the “code” option.
This also allows my player to move around the level.
I then typed in the code for the player to move, without this code, the
player would not be able to move at all and would simply sit in the
middle of the screen. I found the coding slightly difficult due to the
many specific terms and phases that are required.

3. Now that the character has been programed to move, I will test the game
to make sure that the code works; but first I need to make a level to
test the code in. To do this, I clicked the “rooms” tab and created a
new room.
Now that I have a level to test my character in, I can check to see if
my code is working as it should be by clicking the small green arrow on
the upper toolbar.
After loading the game, I tested the code by moving the character in all
directions and found that the code works exactly as it should do. I will
now make a background, while not essential; this will make the game
significantly more interesting.
First though, im going to change the settings so that the player cannot
move off screen.

4. Now the player cannot control the character off screen and the player
will always stay inside the level.
I chose to make this my background to keep to the “Space battle” theme.
The blue background will act as a barrier to stop the player from
leaving the level. Next I’m going to insert this background into my
game.
I now realised that if I want to make my background scroll, I’ll have to
remove the blue walls on the left and right edges and added a few more
details to make the game more interesting.

5. Now ill will make the level scroll forward, and I have also redesigned
the background yet again.
After Changing these settings, I tested the game to make sure is works
as it should. Next im going to add some depth to the game by adding
another background that will move slower than those in the foreground.

6. This is the scene from my game now. There are two backgrounds moving at
different speeds.
I’m now going to add a particle effect to the player to give it a more
interesting visual.
This code will create particles whenever it is applied to another
object, im going to apply it to my character.

7. This code makes my character produce the particles. I have tested the
game again to confirm that it works as it should. Now I want to make a
laser for my character. I’ll start by making the sprite and the mask.
Here I have made a sprite for the laser and made its mask, next I need
to make my character fire the laser, so I will create the code for the
lasers movement and what it does if it hits an enemy.
This is the only bit of code I need to make the laser move after it is
spawned.

8. This allows the player to shoot the laser when the “enter” key is
pressed. I tested the game to make sure this worked again.
Now im going to add sound. To save time im going to download some pre-
made sound effects from the college.
This is the code I used for the sound, now im going to make an enemy. I
also changed some of the sprites to be meteors instead of a robot.

9. I have made enemies and given them a attack formation, they will spawn
randomly after a certain amount of time has passed. Now that this is
done im going to give them lasers and code them to be destroyed when hit
by a the players projectile.
I have now given the enemy lasers and set them to fire at the player.
This was pretty easy since I had already programmed projectiles into my
game.
I now would like to add health/shield mechanics to my game

10. As you can see in the top left of the screen, there is now a health bar
displayed that decreases by 25% each time the player is hit by an enemy
laser.
However now, I must make it so that if the player health becomes 0, they
lose the game and it restarts.
Now whenever the player’s shield reaches zero, they will die and tea me
will restart. Now I will add the final component to my game, which is a
score system.

11. Now that the points system is in the game, the game is finished, But I
am going to spend some time animating and personalising the sprites and
some skins.
I have changed all the sprites in the game and given it a new
background,