Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences

Ready to give your design skills a real boost? This eye-opening book helps you explore the design structure behind most of today’s hit video games. You’ll learn principles and practices for crafting games that generate emotionally charged experiences—a combination of elegant game mechanics, compelling fiction, and pace that fully immerses players.

In clear and approachable prose, design pro Tynan Sylvester also looks at the day-to-day process necessary to keep your project on track, including how to work with a team, and how to avoid creative dead ends. Packed with examples, this book will change your perception of game design.

• Create game mechanics to trigger a range of emotions and provide a variety of play
• Explore several options for combining narrative with interactivity
• Build interactions that let multiplayer gamers get into each other’s heads
• Motivate players through rewards that align with the rest of the game
• Establish a metaphor vocabulary to help players learn which design aspects are game mechanics
• Plan, test, and analyze your design through iteration rather than deciding everything up front
• Learn how your game’s market positioning will affect your design

Table of Contents

Part One Engines of Experience
Chapter 1 Engines of Experience

Part Two Game Crafting
Chapter 2 Elegance
Chapter 3 Skill
Chapter 4 Narrative
Chapter 5 Decisions
Chapter 6 Balance
Chapter 7 Multiplayer
Chapter 8 Motivation and Fulfillment
Chapter 9 Interface
Chapter 10 The Market

Part Three Process
Chapter 11 Planning and Iteration
Chapter 12 Knowledge Creation
Chapter 13 Dependencies
Chapter 14 Authority
Chapter 15 Motivation
Chapter 16 Complex Decisions
Chapter 17 Values