Creating Artificial Intelligence
In 1959, IBM scientist Arthur Samuels devised a program that played checkers (Samuels, 1959). The program could also learn from its mistakes, and eventually it became good enough to beat …
Game Ideas from Other Media
Books, movies, television, and other entertainment media can be great sources of inspiration for game ideas, so long as the ideas include plenty of activity. Cop shows from the 1970s …
Character Development
It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. —J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Character design is an …
Mechanisms for Advancing the Plot
In presentational media, the plot of a story advances at the rate at which the reader reads or the display mechanism displays. In a video game, the storytelling engine causes …
Visual Elements
Whichever interaction model and camera model your game offers, you'll need to supply information that the player needs to know by using the visual elements discussed in this section. Main …
Exploration Challenges
Exploration is often its own reward. Players enjoy moving into new areas and seeing new things, but exploration cannot be free of challenge or it becomes merely sightseeing. Design obstacles …
The Gaussian Curve
When you add dice together like this, the probability of each possible result forms a bell-shaped, or Gaussian, curve, a phenomenon familiar to mathematicians. Figure 10.6 shows a graph of …
Planning Phase
Armed with the list and sketch created in the first stage, you now start to plan the level in detail. Use pencil and paper to work out the sequence of …
Camera Model
For many years, computer strategy games displayed their game worlds in two dimensions as seen from above, effectively treating the video screen like a map or a tabletop game board. …
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) …
Core Versus Casual
The most significant distinction among player types is not between console-game players and computer-game players, nor between men and women, nor even between children and adults. The most significant distinction …
Character Depth
The visual appearance of a character makes the most immediate impact on the player, and you can convey a lot of information about the character through his appearance, but you …
Episodic Delivery
Most of our discussion so far has concentrated on individual stories that come to a definite end. However, a publisher will hope to exploit the popularity of a hit game …
One-Dimensional Input Devices
One-dimensional input devices send a single value to the game. Ordinary controller buttons and keys send binary values; knobs, sliders, and pressure-sensitive buttons send analog values. CONTROLLER BUTTONS AND KEYS …
Core Mechanics
The core mechanics of a game determine how that game actually operates: what its rules are and how the player interacts with them. This chapter begins by defining the core …
Creating a Difficulty Progression
In a balanced game, the perceived difficulty of challenges presented to the player either should not change or should rise, so the player feels that later challenges present greater difficulty …
Action Game Subgenres
Action games fall into a number of subgenres based, like all game genre distinctions, on the kinds of gameplay that they offer. The most familiar and popular action games are …
Character Attributes
There isn't space in this book to give any more than a general introduction to implementing characters in CRPGs. If you haven't played any kind of role-playing game before, take …
Games and Video Games
Before discussing game design, we have to establish what games are and how they work. You might think that everybody knows what a game is, but there are so many …
The Elaboration Stage
Once you have made the fundamental decisions about your game in the concept stage, it's time to move into the elaboration stage of design. At this point, your design work …
The Dimensions of a Game World
Many different properties define a game's world. Some, such as the size of the world, are quantitative and can be given numerical values. Others, such as the world's mood, are …
DESIGN RULE Noninteractive Sequences Must Be Interruptible
All narrative material must be interruptible by the player. Provide a button that allows players to skip the sequence and go on to whatever follows, even if the sequence contains …
Depth Versus Breadth
The more options you offer the player at one time, the more you risk scaring off a player who finds complex user interfaces intimidating. A UI that provides a large …
The Intermediate Challenges
Most designs leave intermediate-level challenges implicit. If you give the player nothing to do except follow explicit instructions, it doesn't feel like a game; it feels like a test. Part …
Feedback Loops, Mutual Dependencies, and Deadlocks
A production mechanism that requires some of the resource that the mechanism itself produces constitutes a feedback loop in the production process. Note that thisuse of the term feedback is …
Parallel Layouts
A parallel layout—a modern variant of the linear layout—resembles a railroad switchyard with lots of parallel tracks and the means for the player to switch from one track to another …
Interaction Model
The most commonly used interaction model for action games is the avatar, found in everything from the original Space Invaders to Half-Life 2. In games that involve exploration or defeating …
