FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION

Other Devices

Games show up on all sorts of other devices these days. The more specialized the device, the more important it is to understand clearly its technical limitations and its audience.

Airlines are starting to build video games into their seats; these games tend to be aimed at children. Personal digital assistants (PDAs) provide a great new platform for small, simple games for adults. Video gambling machines, too, enjoy growing popularity. Because they are so heavily regulated and not sold to consumers, they really constitute an industry unto themselves, but video gambling games require programmers and artists just like any other computer game. And, of course, arcade machines, although not as popular as they once were, still provide employment to game developers.

Because these devices occupy niche markets and often have peculiar design restric­tions, this book doesn't address them in detail. This is a book about game design in general, so it concentrates on games for all-purpose game machines: home consoles and personal computers.

Summary

In this chapter, you learned what a game concept is and what decisions you have to make to create a high concept document. You should now understand the impor­tance of defining the player's role. You also learned the distinctions among game genres and how to think about choosing a target audience—particularly with respect to its degree of dedication to gaming. And you have an idea of how your choice of machine affects the way people play your game.

Creating a game concept is like designing the framework of a building: It gives you the general outlines but not the details. The remainder of this part of the book is dedicated to creating those details.