Chapter 17 — Further Reading

A curated reading and viewing list. Most of these are free online. Pick two or three to start; you can return to the rest as you continue building.

Video Essays & Analysis

Mark Brown — Game Maker's Toolkit (YouTube series) The single most influential modern source on 2D level design analysis. Watch in this order for chapter 17 reinforcement: - "Super Mario 3D World's 4 Step Level Design" — the original ITTM video - "What Made Mega Man 4 Hard?" — boss and level pacing analysis - "Sequence Breaking and Hard Locks in Metroidvania" — design of interconnected worlds - "How Celeste's Assist Mode Honors the Game" — accessibility without lowering the ceiling

Daniel Linssen — Indie Game Devlog talks Short developer talks from the maker of Birdsong and Slipways. Practical wisdom on small-team 2D design.

Egoraptor — Sequelitis: Mega Man Classic vs Mega Man X A 25-minute video from 2011 that became foundational to modern game design YouTube. Specifically discusses how Mega Man X teaches you to wall-jump without text — a textbook ITTM example.

Matthewmatosis — Donkey Kong Country Returns Critique Long-form analysis of pacing, hazard placement, and rhythm in 2D platformers. Excellent for understanding how level rhythm is constructed.

Books

Anna Anthropy — Rise of the Videogame Zinesters A manifesto for small-scale, personal game design. Anthropy's perspective on level design as personal expression is the antidote to corporate-style design-by-committee.

Jesse Schell — The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses Chapter 11 ("Levels") and Chapter 12 ("Action") have the cleanest written explanation of level design principles in any general game design book. Use as reference.

Anna Anthropy & Naomi Clark — A Game Design Vocabulary Especially Chapter 5, "Verbs" — relevant to how level design surfaces and tests game verbs.

Postmortems & Designer Talks

Maddy Thorson — Celeste Postmortem (GDC 2019) Available on the GDC YouTube channel. Maddy walks through Celeste's design evolution from a one-week game jam to a full release. Specifically discusses death-cost design, the dash mechanic's evolution, and the C-Side difficulty design.

Christian Whitehead — Talks on the Retro Engine Several podcast appearances and interviews discussing how Sonic Mania's physics engine was reverse-engineered from the original Sonic games. Search "Christian Whitehead Sonic Mania" on YouTube.

Tyson Steele — Spelunky 2 Postmortem (GDC 2021) On procedural level generation built from hand-authored room templates. Useful for understanding the hybrid procedural/handcrafted approach.

Ari Gibson & William Pellen — Hollow Knight design talks Team Cherry's small team built one of the most acclaimed Metroidvanias of the last decade. Their talks discuss interconnected world design, save room placement, and pacing.

Tools & Tilemap Resources

Godot Documentation — TileMap and TileSet The official Godot docs on tilemap systems. Reference these as you build your tilemap. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/2d/using_tilemaps.html

LDtk (Level Designer Toolkit) A modern, open-source level editor that exports to engines including Godot, Unity, and custom engines. Excellent for 2D tilemap design with multiple layers, custom properties, and entity placement.

Tiled Map Editor The veteran cross-engine tilemap editor. Mature, well-supported, exports to almost every engine and framework.

Aseprite The de facto standard for pixel art and tile design. Tight integration with most tilemap editors. Worth learning even if you outsource art later.

Community & Specific Game Resources

Celeste's source code (open source on GitHub) The Celeste Classic version (the original PICO-8 game jam that became Celeste) is released as source code. Reading it is an education in tight, expressive 2D code.

Sonic Retro and Sonic Hacking Studios Two communities that document Sonic's level design and physics in extraordinary detail. Useful for understanding what Sonic Mania's engine recreates.

Speedrunning communities (speedrun.com) Watch high-level speedruns of Celeste, Super Meat Boy, and Hollow Knight. They reveal level design intent (and unintended exploits) you'd never see in casual play.

Academic & Long-Form

Jeremy Parish — NES Works and Game Boy Works video series Encyclopedic, chronological coverage of platformer design history. Heavy on context and design lineage.

Brendan Keogh — Killing Is Harmless and game studies academic work For those interested in critical/academic game studies framing of level and player experience design.

Where to Go Next

After this chapter, the next steps depend on your direction:

• If you want to ship a 2D platformer: Build, playtest, iterate. Start a devlog. Show your work to other developers.
• If you want to design Metroidvanias: Replay Super Metroid, Hollow Knight, and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with a notebook. Map their worlds.
• If you want to specialize in tilemap art: Get Aseprite. Make a tileset. Make another. Make 50.
• If you want the next chapter: Chapter 18 takes us into 3D level design — where the camera becomes a beast unto itself, and the player can no longer see everything from a single frame.

The skills you've built in 2D level design transfer to 3D, but the feel transforms. Bring your ITTM thinking, your camera intuitions, and your respect for player attention. You'll need them.