Practical Game Design: Learn the art of game design through applicable skills and cutting edge insight

Design creative and accessible games across genres, platforms, and development realities

Key Features

• Design interactive characters that fill up the game world, both allies and enemies
• Apply your learnings with exercises that will stimulate your creativity and get familiar with the game design process
• Understand the skills and techniques required for a game designer to work in a professional studio

Book Description

Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of game design. Are you are looking to take the creative lead and make better game designs faster? Then you have come to the right place. This book is written by two highly experienced industry professionals to give real insights and valuable advice on creating games for this lucrative market.

The book builds up the basics of game design one simple piece at a time. Starting with learning how to conceptualize a game idea and present it to other people, you gradually move onto devising a design work plan for the whole project and adapt solutions from other games. You will learn to create original game mechanics without relying on existing reference material and test and eliminate anticipated design risks. You will then design elements that make up the playthrough length of a game, make the game mechanics, content and interface accessible to all players, and ensure all the gameplay mechanics and game content work as intended. Finally, you will learn to wrap up a game ahead of release, work through the different challenges of designing free to play games, improve its quality indefinitely.

What you will learn

• Define the production boundaries of a project
• Conceptualize a game idea and present it to other people
• Engineer gameplay systems and communicate them clearly and thoroughly
• Build game mechanics off games that already exist
• Distill an original idea into workable system design
• Build spatial canvas of a game
• Wrap up a game ahead of release and improve its quality indefinitely

Who This Book Is For

Whether you are a student just approaching the discipline or junior game designer looking for your first role as a professional, this book is going to equip you with the fundamental knowledge to succeed in your career. By focusing on best practices and a practical approach, the book provides a useful insight into the arts and crafts of two senior game designers that would interest more seasoned professionals in the game industry.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introducing The Game Production Process
Chapter 2: Game Concept
Chapter 3: Scoping A Game Project
Chapter 4: Design Documentation
Chapter 5: Adaptation Of Mechanics
Chapter 6: Invention Of Mechanics
Chapter 7: Prototyping
Chapter 8: Games And Stories
Chapter 9: Level Design
Chapter 10: Characters
Chapter 11: User Interface And User Experience
Chapter 12: Accessibility
Chapter 13: Balancing
Chapter 14: The Final 10%
Chapter 15: Games As A Service