Hand drawn 2D platform game level sketches and video

By Pete | Published: December 12, 2014

I scanned in a rough drawing from my moleskin book – one I’m using as an environment game level in a demo platform game I designed and developed a few years ago.  It needed sprucing up a bit, so I made some simple custom pencil and paint brushes to assist in giving it more life. Please note that this was originally posted a couple of years ago, and I am trying to find some time to get this back on track in 2015.


Here is a work in progress screen capture video I made of the hand-drawn demo game level above. It’s got a rusty acoustic guitar riff I played over the top. I do hope to get a bit of time to develop this all a lot further in the near future. The game engine and a big stack of concept artwork and level design work is already well under way.

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Hand drawn 2D platform game level design process tutorial

By Pete | Published: January 11, 2012

First of all I came up with a really rough concept level design on a scrap of paper (no-one can over estimate the value of scraps of paper!).  Some tweaks were needed, but this concept contains the basic ideas for puzzle mechanics within the level design.

Biro sketched level design by Peter McClory

After I was satisfied with the level design, I planned it out a little more accurately on an A4 piece of squared paper. Graph paper has too many squares. In fact it is worth getting hold of squared paper that is as feint as possible, so that there is more contrast with your drawn design. Read More »

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Street Painting (Chalk Drawing) in Florence, Italy

By Pete | Published: June 8, 2008

Street painting is an experience I recommend to anyone and everyone.

It is good exercise, most certainly gives you good practice at taking criticism.

It is also a great opportunity to work quickly, at a large scale and under pressure, because you have to wash and scub it all away before midnight (or you turn into a pumpkin… only kidding).

Dirty hands after street painting

After spending several hours on your hands and knees in the street, on top of a large chalk drawing, it is likely that you may become a little dirty.

Below you can see the first of my street paintings on the road. I was of course doing it all legally, with an official “Madonnari” license in the centre of Florence on via Calimala, just off Della Republica.

For my first street painting I decided to rely more on my creativity than getting bogged-down with the technicalities of replicating famous portaits as precisely as possible.

Read More »

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Freely Playable Scrolling Platform Game with Experimental Mouseclick Control

By Pete | Published: April 9, 2008

Here you can play the latest version of an experimental free scrolling platform game I’m developing in Adobe Director.

The simple platforms are just place holders to test out collisions and scrolling.

Playable prototype demo level of scrolling platform game engine made in Adobe Director

Screen-shot of this playable prototype demo level from the scrolling platform game project

Other versions based on this platform game engine will be made available on this site soon, along with code examples. It is written in Lingo, the native language for Adobe Director. This programming language/script is extremely similar to JavaScript.

The mouse-click control is a temporary experiment. I found it interesting but more quirky than other more traditional control methods.

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Saving user data with SetPref() and GetPref(). File location saved with Lingo in Adobe Director 11

By Pete | Published: April 7, 2008

If you are using Adobe Director to create applications or games, or anything at all that has a need for the user to save and load data, you are most likely going to want to use the SetPref() and GetPref() commands. These commands don’t need a separate plugin and they are also Shockwave safe.

There are a couple of a great, simple little examples in articles on Director-Online, here: http://www.director-online.com/buildArticle.php?id=329 and here: http://director-online.com/forums/read.php?2,26334

These articles are quite old now, and still applicable. One little bit of extra information for Vista users: The save file is saved to the following location on the users’ harddisk:

C:\Users\\AppData\LocalLow\Adobe\Director 11\Prefs

Where should be replaced by… you got it! (the angle brackets aren’t needed).

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(Director Shockwave) Scrolling Platform Game Engine in Development Using Lingo.

By Pete | Published: April 4, 2008

This is the first playable prototype of a free side-scrolling platform game I am developing using Adobe Director.

Everything is in early stages of development. The graphical environment elements in the initial playable prototypes are just place-holders for testing out controls, collisions, scrolling and other fundamentals.

Screen shot from prototype shockwave platform game level by Peter McClory

Playable demo platform game level made in Adobe Director by Peter McClory

You will need the (free) Adobe Shockwave Player (similar to Flash and made by the same people) plugin to play it in your web browser.

I’m developing much larger levels with far more elements and animation. I’ll post a playable level soon, but for now you’ll just have to hold on for this update which will include a much larger explorable world, acoustic music and sfx, and puzzle-solving elements.

You can play some of the prototypes for free on the Game Project pages.

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