FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION

Design Components and Processes

Game design is the process of

■ Imagining a game

■ Defining the way it works

■ Describing the elements that make up the game (conceptual, functional, artistic, and others)

■ Transmitting information about the game to the team who will build it

A game designer's job includes all of these tasks. This chapter begins by discussing an approach called player-centric game design. Then you learn about the central components of any video game—the core mechanics and the user interface (UI)— and you see how these components are defined in the design process. Finally, we explore the various job roles on a design team and some of the qualities that it takes to be a game designer.

In the video game industry, all but the smallest games are designed by teams of anywhere from 3 to 20 people. (The entire development team is often much larger, but we're only concerned with the design team.) This book is written as if you are the lead designer, responsible for overseeing everything. If your team is small, or if you are designing alone, you may perform many of the different design roles your­self. This text is written as if you are designing for a home console machine or a personal computer, although much of the material here is applicable to any game device.