FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
How Is This Book Organized?
Fundamentals of Game Design, Second Edition is divided into two parts. The first twelve chapters are about designing games in general: what a game is, how it works, and what kinds of decisions you have to make to create one. The next eight chapters are about different genres of games and the design considerations peculiar to each genre. The final chapter addresses some of the special design considerations of online gaming.
Part One: The Elements of Game Design
Chapter 1 introduces games in general and video games in particular, including formal definitions of the terms game and gameplay. It also discusses what computers bring to games and lists the important ways that video games entertain.
Chapter 2 introduces the key components of a video game: the core mechanics, user interface, and storytelling engine. It also presents the concept of a gameplay mode and the structure of a video game. The last half of the chapter is devoted to the practice of game design, including my recommended approach, player-centric design.
Chapter 3 is about game concepts: where the idea for a game comes from and how to refine the idea. The audience and the target hardware (the machine the game will run on) both have a strong influence on the direction the game will take.
Chapter 4 speaks to the game's setting and world: the place where the gameplay happens and the way things work there. As the designer, you're the god of your world, and it's up to you to define its concepts of time and space, mechanics, and natural laws, as well as many other things: its logic, emotions, culture, and values.
Chapter 5 addresses creative and expressive play, listing different ways your game can support the players' creativity and self-expression.
Chapter 6 addresses character design, inventing the people or beings who populate your game world—especially the character who will represent the player there (his avatar), if there is one. Every successful entertainer from Homer onward has understood the importance of having an appealing protagonist.
Chapter 7 delves into the problems of storytelling and narrative, introducing the issues of linear, branching, and foldback story structures. It also discusses a number of related issues such as scripted conversations and episodic story structures.
Chapter 8 is about user interface design: the way the player experiences and interacts with the game world. A bad user interface can kill an otherwise brilliant game, so you must get this right.
Chapter 9 discusses gameplay, the heart of the player's mental experience of a game. The gameplay consists of the challenges the player faces and the actions he takes to overcome them. It also analyzes the nature of difficulty in gameplay.
Chapter 10 looks at the core mechanics of a game, especially its internal economy, and the flow of resources (money, points, ammunition, or whatever) throughout the game.
Chapter 11 considers the issue of game balancing, the process of making multiplayer games fair to all players and controlling the difficulty of single-player games.
Chapter 12 introduces the general principles of level design, both universal principles and genre-specific ones. It also considers a variety of level layouts and proposes a process for level design.
