Setting and Emotional Tone
In some kinds of games, such as chess and Quake, the setting is almost irrelevant. Serious players ignore the idea that chess is a medieval war game or that Quake …
Online Gaming
Online gaming has grown from a tiny fraction of the interactive entertainment business into a major market in its own right. In this chapter, you'll learn about some of the …
Games for Girls
The game industry has always been overwhelmingly dominated by men, and male developers have tended to design games that they themselves would like (or would have liked when they were …
Gameplay and Victory Conditions
The primary challenge in playing any vehicle simulator is in controlling the vehicle: learning to speed it up, slow it down, and steer it without crashing it into something. Without …
CONCEPTUAL NON SEQUITURS
This is a variant of the trial-and-error puzzle, a problem whose solution requires thinking so lateral that it's completely irrational. The term describes something along the lines of "put the …
MODERATED CHAT SPACES
The most effective, but also the most expensive, way of keeping order in a chat space is to give one person authority to discipline the others at all times. Internet …
Sports Games
Sports games create a special challenge for the game designer. So many people play or watch sports that they come to a video game with high expectations about what the …
Mind Reading
If your game allows the player to select a simulated character—usually done by clicking the character with the mouse—you can offer another useful analytical tool: mind reading. To let the …
God Games
The term god game refers to games in which the player takes on the role of a god, but one with limited powers like the gods of ancient Greece, rather …
World Models
If you plan to offer more than just a chat room, you must give players something to do. The types of things that you give them to do and the …
Athlete AI Design
In action games and first-person shooters, the player's AI-driven opponents typically exhibit a small number of behaviors each triggered by a specific event (appearance of the player on the scene, …
Interaction Model
Adventure games always use an avatar-based interaction model because the designer wants to put the player inside a story. However, the nature of the avatar in adventure games has changed …
Advantages of Online Games
Some features of online games offer advantages to us as game developers, and some offer advantages to players, attracting people who might not otherwise play computer games. Player Socializing Online …
Mattel’s Approach
If you want to make games specifically for girls, as opposed to games that appeal to children of both sexes, you have to ask yourself what especially interests girls—and, perhaps …
Designing Opponents
The easiest way to design a variety of opponents in a vehicle simulation is simply to provide different drivers' vehicles with different performance characteristics. One plane climbs slightly faster than …
CLICK-THE-RIGHT-PIXEL PUZZLES
A few adventure games with point-and-click user interfaces require the player to click a tiny and inconspicuous area of the screen to advance the story for no particular reason except …
EXAMPLES OF COLLUSION
Computer games seldom have written rules because the designers assume that the game will enforce the rules automatically: The players simply can't make illegal moves, in most cases. However, software …
Game Features
Most sports games concentrate on simulating actual matches, but many also include a number of management functions as well—the challenges of managing a team or an athlete's career. A few …
Pure Business Simulations
Pure business simulations allow players to construct only financial fortunes, not visible worlds. A game like Theme Park World is a business simulation because it's about attracting customers and making …
THE ECONOMY OF GOD GAMES
In a god game, the player's power, usually called mana, grows along with the number and prosperity of his worshippers. The size of the population typically influences two critical values: …
Avatar Death
In any persistent world that includes combat, you must decide whether it's possible for the player's avatar to die and what will happen if it does. As in other games, …
How Video Games Entertain
At its most elementary level, game design consists of inventing and documenting the elements of a game. However, games don't exist in a vacuum; people create them to serve a …
Game Ideas from Other Games
A great many people who play computer games want to design them as well. When you play a lot of games, you develop a sense of how they work and …
The Goals of Character Design
In many genres, games structure gameplay around characters. Action games (especially the fighting and platform subgenres), adventure games, action-adventure hybrids, and role-playing games all use characters extensively to entertain. Players …
The Story as a Journey
If your game involves an avatar on a journey, that is, a game in which much of the activity involves moving the avatar from place to place in the game …
Feedback Elements
Feedback elements communicate details about the game's inner states—its core mechanics—to the player. They tell the player what is going on, how she is doing, what options she has selected, …
Conflict
A conflict challenge is one requiring the direct opposition of forces, some of which are under player control. If one player must beat the others by opposing or impeding them …
Avoiding Dominant Strategies
A strategy is a plan for playing a game, usually according to a principle or approach that the player believes is likely to produce success. One player may favor an …
Prototyping
In this stage, you will build a prototype of the level. Much of this work will consist of using a 3D modeling tool to construct temporary models of the landscape …
Artificial Opponents
Single-player strategy games often present the fiction that the player is opposed by another player like himself, who makes moves just the way the player does. In wargames, it's fun …
FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
An Approach to the Task
Over the years, people have tried many approaches to game design, and some of them are better than others. A few tend to result in catastrophic failures. This book teaches …
Other Distinctions
Several other groups exhibit particular trends in their game-playing preferences, and a brief list follows. Note that this section is about choosing a target audience, not about actually designing a …
Role, Attitudes, and Values
Every character in a story plays a role, just as every character in a movie plays a role even if only as an extra. The moment a character appears for …
User Interfaces
The user interface (UI) creates the player's experience, making the game visible, audible, and playable. It has an enormous effect on whether the player perceives the game as satisfying or …
