2D Adventure Game Creation: Art, Music, Programming and More

Learn to create a 2D "point and click" Adventure Game with hand-painted graphics, original music and voice acting!

Created byIsaac Lundgren

Last updated 7/2019

English

English [Auto],Korean [Auto],

What you'll learn

Students will be able to identify core skills needed to create adventure games.
Students will be able to create original music and art assets for an adventure game.
Students will be able to create 8 pose walk-cycle animations for a 2-D character.
Students will be able to gather ideas for their game world, and map out a game level and scene.
Students will be able to have a successful voice acting recording session.
Students will know how to edit and separate voice acting takes, and export them for use in their game.
Students will know how to bring their original art assets together to create an adventure game scene using Adventure Creator for Unity Game Engine.
Students will be able to use Adobe Photoshop as a tool for digital painting creation.
Students will feel confident when choosing needed equipment/ tools for adventure game design, such as graphics tablet, midi controller keyboard, and microphone type.

Course content

17 sections • 106 lectures • 19h 33m total length

Introduction4:04
Welcome to the course! Feel free to go at your own pace, watch the videos you are interested in, skip the ones you don't need! This course is for you! Happy Adventuring!

Character Design Graphics Application0:43
Photoshop Intro for Character Design7:19
Master the Photoshop intro for character design by setting up a canvas, using a hard round brush with pressure, and managing layers, opacity, and tools like move, eraser, and history.
Before you begin...1:29
Outline the story and character purpose before design. Create a character for the kingdom of Tarnow in ruins, considering attributes and motivations, then prepare in Photoshop with a ready palette.
Front View Rough Sketch of Character Body4:21
I am adding the 5-pose character sketch file to this lecture. I work on it for the next 6 videos... Feel free to skim through these character sketch videos if you are an advanced user, they show the whole creation process which can be tedious to watch if you are at an intermediate or advanced photoshop level, but skimming through them can still give you a general idea of the process. If you are struggling to draw your character at multiple angles, these videos could still be helpful for you.
Front View Face Sketch5:22
Front View Details and Clean Up4:43
Side View Sketch18:34
Down Left View Sketch3:22
Adjust the head to a three-quarter view by lowering it slightly, sketch the skull, brain, chin, and neck, and apply perspective as the farther shoulder rises with depth.
Back View and 3/4 Back View Sketch9:38
Develop character design across five main views by focusing on the three-quarter back view and full back view, using tracing on new layers and horizontal flips to position features.
Color 01 Front View20:03
Character Color 0212:20
Character Clean Up 0113:44
Character Clean Up 0215:33
I have attached the finished 5-pose colored character graphics to this lecture, if you'd like to examine them up close or experiment with them.

Character Walk Cycle 01 Side View12:22
Apply a 2D walk cycle by crafting contact and passing poses, mirroring arms, adjusting bone transforms, copying frames, and refining timing for a looped animation with subtle tweaks.
Character Walk Cycle 02 Down Left View16:21
Character Walk Cycle 03 Front View6:32
Character Walk Cycle 04 3/4 Back View4:31
Adjusts a 3/4 back walk cycle by selecting and copying bone frames, aligning poses across frames, refining spine, head, and feet for fluid animation.
Character Walk Cycle 05 Back View6:29
Exporting Animations to PNGs7:34
Transition Video...1:13

Requirements

You should be able to navigate on a computer at a beginning or intermediate level.
You should have a desire to learn skills in at least one of the 5 main areas... Music, Digital Painting, 2D Animation, Voice Acting, Game Programming.
Software must-haves to complete the course: Unity Game Engine (personal edition is free), Adventure Creator Game toolkit for Unity.
Recommended Software to complete the course (you could use your preferred comparable applications as well): Adobe Photoshop, MoHo Studio (or Earlier Version of Anime Studio Pro), Logic Pro X
Recommended Hardware to complete the course: MIDI controller Keyboard, Artists Graphics Tablet or Pen Monitor, Microphone, Studio Monitors or headphones

Description

In this course we will go through the process of creating your own 2-D storybook-style "Point and Click" Adventure Game, including story, game world and character design, creating your own art assets in manipulable layers, animating your character, bone-rigging your 2D character in multiple angles for quick animating of an 8-pose walk-cycle. We will also cover practices for creating original music for your game, voice acting and recording dialogue for your characters, and finally bringing all of your original assets together and programming them into a functional scene for an adventure game (in an artist-friendly programming environment).

You can follow along using the same software titles in the course, or apply the concepts learned to your own music and art creation software choices.

The software used in the course will be...

Adobe Photoshop: for background art and character creation.

Moho Studio Pro: for character animation.

Logic Pro X: for music and voice recording/ editing.

Adventure Creator Game Toolkit for the Unity Game Engine for bringing all of the game assets together and programming your game! (Don't worry, you can program your entire game without needed to type out a single line of code, it is very artist friendly).

Additional Topics Covered:

Light music and art theory

Brief history of instrument sampling

Discussing effective hardware and software tools

Who this course is for:

Anyone interested in the process of making a high-res 2D "point and click" adventure game!
Anyone interested in 2D bone-rigging animation!
Anyone interested in using Photoshop as a drawing/ painting tool!
Anyone interested in improving the quality of their digital art making!
Anyone interested in Digital Music Recording and Composition!
Anyone interested in voice acting for video games!
Anyone interested in programming an adventure game without having to learn to code (artist-friendly programming)!

2D Adventure Game Creation: Art, Music, Programming and More

What you'll learn

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Course content

Introduction1 lecture • 4min

Story Development1 lecture • 17min

Course Resources: Music, Voice and Art Assets used during course demos1 lecture • 1min

Character Design 01: Sketch, Color and Refine13 lectures • 1hr 57min

Character Design 02: Separating into "pieces" prepping for 2D animation6 lectures • 1hr 58min

Character Animation 01: Bone Rigging and Animation Prep7 lectures • 1hr 41min

Character Animation 02: Idle and Talk Animations4 lectures • 1hr 8min

Character Animation 03: 8-Pose Walk Cycle7 lectures • 55min

Game World and Level Design2 lectures • 58min

Intro to Graphics Tablets and Digital Painting4 lectures • 53min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: