Viability of a computer game level creation tool : To facilitate design prototype

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate how prototyping of video game levels can be made more accessible by developing a user-friendly game level creation system, evaluating it and producing a number of design principles to be followed when designing such systems. The research question for this study is thus: How can video game level creation be made more accessible? There were several key areas at the center of this study such as Usability, GUI Design, Prototyping, and Game Development. This study utilized an adaption of the Design Science Research Methodology, and evaluation of the resulting artifact was done via user testing and surveys. Survey responses revealed that 95% of the participants successfully completed the main task of the trial, to create a completable video game level within 25 minutes. In addition, all participants answered a 3 (neutral) to 5 (best) on ranked survey questions relating to the usability of the artifact. This study resulted in design principles which were derived from the survey responses via a qualitative decoding process. The conclusion drawn is that computer game level creation can be made more accessible via the development of tools abiding by the design principles proposed by this study.