FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
Part Two: The Genres of Games
Chapter 13 is about the earliest, and still most popular, genre of interactive entertainment: action games. This genre may be divided into numerous subgenres such as shooter games, fighting games, platformers, and others, which the chapter addresses in as much detail as there is room for.
Chapter 14 discusses another genre that has been part of gaming since the beginning: strategy games, both real-time and turn-based.
Chapter 15 is about role-playing games, a natural outgrowth of pencil and paper games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
Chapter 16 looks at sports games, which have a number of peculiar design challenges. The actual contest itself is designed by others; the trick is to map human athletic activities onto a screen and control devices.
Chapter 17 addresses vehicle simulations: cars, planes, boats, and other, more exotic modes of transportation such as tanks.
Chapter 18 is about construction and management simulations in which the player tries to build and maintain something—a city, a theme park, a planet—within the limitations of an economic system.
Chapter 19 explores adventure games, an old and unique genre of gaming given new life by the creation of a hybrid type, the action-adventure.
Chapter 20 examines two other genres of games: artificial life and puzzle games.
Chapter 21 looks at online gaming, which is not a genre but a technology. Online games enable people to play with, or against, each other in numbers from two up to hundreds of thousands. Playing against real people that you cannot see has enormous consequences for the game's design. The second half of the chapter addresses the particular problems of persistent worlds like World of Warcraft.
The Glossary defines many of the game design terms that appear in italics throughout the book.
Appendix A discusses designing to appeal to particular target audiences: hardcore players and casual players; men and women; children in general and girls in particular. It also includes a section on accessibility issues for players with impairments of various kinds.
At www. peachpit. com/fgd2 you'll find design document templates, a list of suggestions for further reading, and materials for instructors. This material may be updated periodically, so make sure you have the latest versions.
