Making a campaign in Legend Maker

Maker is the Windows authoring environment for The Gynara Legend. It combines precise manual editing, optional generation, typed content and access to the actual game runtime.

A reusable authoring workflow needs stable identities, reversible document edits and validation grounded in the actual player movement.

The editor follows the content

A room owns placements such as terrain, platforms, enemies and exits. A referenced enemy profile owns shared behavior and attack data. Sprite slots own artwork and its presentation metadata. A campaign selects rooms and a starting point. These distinctions let an author make a local placement change without accidentally redefining every instance of an enemy.

The selected room's Hierarchy shows its game objects. Room navigation uses the Room dropdown. The World Stage View owns canvas selection and layout; the inspector and existing workspaces edit the selected content. Akari is the editor guide, helping explain the available tools.

Generation with a gameplay constraint

Optional layout tools use a seeded plan and movement measurements derived from the real controller. Route checks exercise jumps, landings, clearance and connections. Preserved areas and authored reservations protect intentional room work. The generated result becomes ordinary editable content; the shipping game does not need to regenerate the room to play it.

Changing a validated layout can invalidate its route evidence. A preview or previous check is not a permanent guarantee that later edits remain traversable. Final encounter feel, pacing and visual clarity still need the author's playtest.

Editing is a document lifecycle

Maker keeps bounded undo/redo history, distinguishes drafts from saved content, and groups related changes into transactions. Its persistence layer coordinates writers and recovery. This matters when a sprite replacement, imported asset or room edit affects several related files.

A practical authoring loop is: choose a small outcome, edit the owning document, review diagnostics, save, and use an owner-run Play room check when gameplay is affected. A finished room then joins a saved campaign and an explicitly prepared export.

Current limits

Maker uses WPF and is a Windows tool. The runtime's portability does not imply a macOS or Linux editor. A complete visual editor for every menu/HUD detail is not implemented; some presentation remains in C#. Beat 'Em Up is deferred. Event and behavior panels should describe executable capabilities rather than promise arbitrary scripting.

Read the game platform, artwork and audio, and release engineering.

Implementation evidence in TheGynaraLegend: src/Gynara.LegendMaker, src/Gynara.Authoring/DocumentHistory.cs, src/Gynara.Authoring/Persistence, src/Gynara.Content/Authoring/StageLayoutMovement.cs, StageLayoutRouteValidation.cs, and src/Gynara.Content/Events/EventSheetCompiler.cs. Maker's detailed manuals are under that repository's docs/current.

Further reading: Maintained handbook chapter.