fundamentals of game design 2nd edition pdf

Game Design: Theory and Practice 2nd Edition pdf

Download Game Design: Theory and Practice – Game Design: Theory and Practice: In the second edition to the acclaimed Game Design: Theory & Practice, designer Richard Rouse III balances a discussion of the essential concepts behind game design with an explanation of how you can implement them in your current project.

Table of Contents

1 Download Game Design: Theory and Practice
- 1.1 Buy from Amazon Here
2 Content Summary
3 Review – Game Design: Theory and Practice
- 3.1 Acknowledgments – Game Design: Theory and Practice
- 3.2 Foreword – Game Design: Theory and Practice
4 Introduction to the Second Edition
5 Table of Contents
6 What Is Game Design?

Download Game Design: Theory and Practice

Detailed analysis of successful games is interwoven with concrete examples from Rouse's own experience. This second edition thoroughly updates the popular original with new chapters and fully revised text.

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Content Summary

Chapter 1 What Players Want …………………..1
Chapter 2 Interview: Sid Meier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter 3 Brainstorming a Game Idea: Gameplay, Technology,
and Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Chapter 4 Game Analysis: Centipede . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Chapter 5 Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Chapter 6 Interview: Ed Logg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Chapter 7 The Elements of Gameplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Chapter 8 Game Analysis: Tetris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Chapter 9 Artificial Intelligence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Chapter 10 Interview: Steve Meretzky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Chapter 11 Storytelling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Chapter 12 Game Analysis: Loom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Chapter 13 Multi-Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Chapter 14 Interview: Chris Crawford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Chapter 15 Getting the Gameplay Working . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Chapter 16 Game Analysis: Myth: The Fallen Lords . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Chapter 17 Game Development Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Chapter 18 Interview: Jordan Mechner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Chapter 19 The Design Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Chapter 20 Game Analysis: The Sims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Chapter 21 Designing Design Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
Chapter 22 Interview: Will Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Chapter 23 Level Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Chapter 24 Game Analysis: Grand Theft Auto III . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
Chapter 25 Playtesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
Chapter 26 Interview: Doug Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Appendix A Sample Design Document: Atomic Sam. . . . . . . . . . . 535
Appendix B Sample Design Document: The Suffering . . . . . . . . . . 579
Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655
Selected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677

Review – Game Design: Theory and Practice

I have read around 10 books on game development (and watched or listened to several presentations) at this point, and am in the process of making my first game. I gave this book five stars for its value to me, especially in terms of how the various aspects of game documentation can useful in both clarifying your own thoughts and explaining your game to others. By documentation I mean various summaries that describe things like plot, dialogue/narrative, game play, back story, etc. Simply discussing these topics gave me additional game ideas and ways to conceptualize what I was doing in game design and what I should be doing. I would generally agree with the reviewer who said "beginner to intermediate," although I know from experience that people have widely differing ways of creating and promoting their works, and I could see an advanced game developer who didn't much like writing things down learning from this. I have not seen this topic area (game development documentation) treated with the depth and interesting discussion that this book contains.
The writing is very clear, although there is definitely repetition in places–nothing I couldn't skip over a few pages to get past. The specific games that are discussed are dated, but as usual, there are concepts and lessons that the developers (like Chris Crawford) offer in their interviews that are applicable to most games, and are also very interesting if you haven't seen their interviews before. I happen to be writing a branching choice scifi adventure game, so the discussion of the author's development of his branching choice adventure game was very helpful for me.
All in all, highly recommended.

Acknowledgments – Game Design: Theory and Practice

Thanks to Steve Ogden for coming back to Atomic Sam and breathing life into the little kid once again. Thanks to Noah Falstein, James Hague, Damion Schubert, Ian Parberry, and Margaret Rogers for looking over my work and providing me with invaluable feedback and support, which have improved this book tremendously. Thanks also to Tom Hall, Katherine Isbister, Darius Kazemi, and Michael Eilers for their comments on this book and how it might be made better the second time around. Thanks to Doug Church, Chris Crawford, Ed Logg, Jordan Mechner, Sid Meier, Steve Meretzky, and Will Wright for graciously subjecting themselves to my nearly endless questioning. Thanks to Wes Beckwith, Beth Kohler, Martha McCuller, Alan McCuller, Denise McEvoy, Tim McEvoy, and everyone at Wordware for making this book once again become a reality. For their help with this book, thanks to Jim Hill, Steve Crane, Ken Fedesna, George Gomez, Rob Gustafson, Reilly Brennan, Robin Hunicke, Matt Bertz, Scott Miller, Jenny Huldschiner, Tyrone Miller, Carol Quito, Rannie Yoo, Loretta Stevens, Jason Wonacott, Doug Zartman, Benson Russell, John Scott Lewinski, Ari Feldman, Laura J. Mixon-Gould, Jeff Buccelatto, Jayson Hill, Laura Pokrifka, Josh Moore, Lisa Sokulski, Dan Harnett, Steffan Levine, Susan Wooley, Chris Brandkamp, Kelley Gilmore, Lindsay Riehl, Patrick Buechner, Greg Rizzer, Lori Mezoff, Jenna Mitchell, Ericka Shawcross, Maryanne Lataif, Bryce Baer, Bob Bates, James Conner, Lisa Tensfeldt, Paula Cook, Donald Knapp, and Diana Fuentes. Thanks to Jamil Moledina, Jennifer Olsen, Alex Dunne, & everyone at Game Developer/Gamasutra, Gordon Cameron, Tuncer Deniz, Bart Farkas, Andy Eddy, Brian Moriarty, Scott McCloud, Ed Magnin, Bernd Kreimeier, Andrew Rollings, George Broussard, Jason Della Rocca, Dave Astle, Tom Russo, Kevin Toyama, Greg Orlando, George Jones, Owain Bennallack, Matthew Percival, Dishad Husain, Julie Perkins, Angie Cox & everyone at Gamer.tv, Jon Goodwin, Christopher Erhardt, Jonathan Kay, Neil Morton, Stephen Granade, Jeff Vogel, Laura Heon, Kaarin Lemstrom-Sheedy & MassMOCA, Troy Dunniway, Clay Heaton, Rich Carlson, Iikka Keranen, Curt Feldman & everyone at E3, Alan Patmore, Nick Radovich & everyone at Surreal, David Zucker & everyone at Midway, Mark Bullock, the Leaping Lizard crew, Brian Rice, Lee Waggoner, Pat Alphonso, Peter Tamte, Nate Birkholtz, Al Schilling, Cindy Swanson & everyone at MacSoft, Alex Seropian, Jason Jones, Jim McNally, Jeff O'Connor, Ira Harmon, Gordon Marsh, Glenn Fabry, Derek Riggs, and Chuck Schuldiner. Special thanks to Richard & Regina Rouse, Dave Rouse, Linda Rouse, Grayson Starner, Margaret Rogers & the Rogers clan, June Oshiro & Matt Bockol, Ben Young, Alain, Annalisa, & Alexandria Roy, Katie & Eric Pidkameny, Gail Jabbour, Amy & Jason Schigelone, Rafael & Belinda Brown, Eloise Pasachoff, Kristin Kane, and Christian & Logan Bell.

Foreword – Game Design: Theory and Practice

Just a few years ago, books about computer game design were as rare on the bookshelves as silk ties in the wardrobe of a game programmer. Then, around the turn of the millennium, a trickle of new books began to appear. One of the early ones that caught my eye was the first edition of this book, Game Design: Theory & Practice by Richard Rouse III. I noted that Richard has design credits on published games and the hard-won insights that conveys, as well as the descriptive skills to articulate those insights. I also appreciated the literal truth of the title of the book; it covers both the underlying theories behind game design while providing practical guidance on how to put those theories to use. But my favorite chapters of the book were the interviews. Richard persuaded an impressive array of talented and influential game designers to answer his thorough and insightful questions. So when Richard asked me to review and comment on this latest revision of his book and write an introduction, I jumped at the chance. Game design is still a young craft, but a rapidly maturing one. No longer in its infancy certainly, computer and video games have been around for over 30 years, and despite a generous helping of Peter Pan Syndrome they've achieved a virtual adolescence at least. This means that game designers have graduated from the trial-and-error stages of the early years and learned what works and what doesn't. In turn that has resulted in a growing shared knowledge base of universal principles of game design. My own quarter-century of experience in game development and research into the underlying rules of good game design have indicated that it is possible to both identify and teach the rules that have influenced every successful game for decades, and this book is a worthy contributor to that body of knowledge. But the video games of the Pong era bear a pretty tenuous resemblance to the multi-million dollar extravaganzas of the current day, and many of the skills necessary to design a game have likewise changed and matured. Game Design: Theory and Practice

Furthermore, games present a widely varied face to the world. Superficially, games like Centipede or Tetris are vastly different from The Sims or Civilization. So it is impressive that this book manages to identify many qualities that are common to all good games and the skills needed to create design documents for them, while doing a credible job of covering elements specific to certain types of games as well, such as storytelling, scripting, AI, and multiplayer design. The game analysis chapters dissect and appraise the internal qualities of games and so grant insight into both the games highlighted as well as the process of analysis itself. And the interviews delve into both the shared knowledge of renowned designers and their individual quirks and unique histories. In short, I've found this book to be remarkable at revealing the range of the creative game design process, as well as just plain fun to read. And I hope you will as well! Noah Falstein Greenbrae, CA

Introduction to the Second Edition

It has been four years since the release of the first edition of the book you now hold in your hands. It is interesting to reflect on what has changed in the industry during the intervening time, or, more specifically, what has not changed. In many ways we have seen a continuation of the trends that were well underway when this book was first written. Games continue to get bigger and prettier but not necessarily any more fun. Licenses have become more prevalent than ever, whether in the form of a movie tie-in or just having a quasi-famous personality attached to a project. The line between a computer game and a console game has become more and more blurred, with the largest games typically coming out on both, some under the same name but in different forms, but most providing almost exactly the same experience. In general, boldly original titles have become fewer and farther between. A lot has happened to me since the first edition, and where appropriate I have woven that experience into this revision. Game Design: Theory and Practice

The game that I was working on during the writing of the first edition, a western called Gunslinger, died out from under me. Though it had a number of problems, in the end it fell prey to the industry's more and more risk-averse nature. Following that, I managed to do quite a bit of work on Drakan: The Ancients' Gates and then developed The Suffering from conception through to localization. New examples from the practice of game development on The Suffering are integrated throughout this edition's chapters. Also, in addition to the Atomic Sam document that appeared in the original book, the complete design document for The Suffering has been included as an appendix. I sincerely hope this design document will be of particular interest to readers since it was used for a title that actually shipped. Since the first book came out, two games have achieved greater popular success than anyone could have predicted. Those games are The Sims (which was analyzed in the first edition) and Grand Theft Auto III (which is analyzed in this new edition). In the intervening time, all of the game designers who were interviewed in the original edition completed new works in the industry, with five out of the six shipping new games, while Chris Crawford released two books. For this edition, I was fortunate enough to talk once again with most of these designers to update their interviews to reflect their most recent accomplishments (with the notable exception of Sid Meier, who as of this writing is busily trying to ship the new version of Pirates!). Also, the second edition gave me the opportunity to do an in-depth interview with a game designer I quoted extensively in the first book, Doug Church. Game Design: Theory and Practice

Church is one of the most forward-looking designers working today, and I hope reading his thoughts prove inspirational for any designer. As well as adding more examples from the games of the last four years, for the second edition I wanted to improve on what the book did well the first time, while filling in xvii a few of the gaps. Multi-player games have become significantly more prevalent since the first edition and were woefully underrepresented in the book before; now multi-player gaming is the subject of an entire chapter. Though the storytelling and artificial intelligence chapters are among the most expanded in the book, all of the chapters have been revised and updated significantly. Even the bibliography and glossary have been reworked and expanded. When working on the second edition of Game Design: Theory & Practice, I revisited a lot of the feedback I received from the first edition, and did my best to address some of the concerns that were brought up. Nevertheless, I can say the views contained herein are still distinctly my own and represent my personal views on game development. Often my thoughts fall in line with the commonly held wisdom in the industry, but other times you will find I disagree with what everyone else seems to be doing. Who is right? No one is right, per se. In the creation of art there are no easy absolutes. As a game designer you need to balance going with the prevailing wisdom with what you feel in your heart. If you always make decisions based on popular opinion or on the flavor of the moment, you will always make average, predictable games. Game Design: Theory and Practice

As a game designer, you should take what I say in this book, reflect on it, and decide where you stand and how you want to proceed on your own projects. It is my sincere hope that your views of game design end up substantially different from mine, so that when you make a game and I make a game we do not end up with exactly the same player experience. Variety, after all, is not only the spice of life, it is life. One of the most frequent comments I heard about the first edition of the book was that it seemed dated. I would argue that it was not dated, merely that it attempted to look at game development over the entire history of the medium, not just the three years preceding the book's publication. The book contained examples and discussion of current games proportionate to classic games. Indeed, if I had focused more on what was current in the industry when I wrote it, the book might have seemed relevant on its release, but within a few years truly would have been horribly dated. If one looks at the first edition today, four years after it came out, one will find it is nearly just as relevant today as it was then. Thus, in making a new edition, I strove less to bring the book "up to date" and more to expand on what it was already doing. Yes, I've included references to newer games, since many great new games have come out since the book was first published, but I've kept just as many discussions of the classics from the last three decades. Anyone who has worked with me knows that, when in the heat of game development, I am as likely to pull inspiration from a game made in 1983 as a game made in 2003. I would argue that to be a great game designer, you need to understand the past just as well as the present. Game Design: Theory and Practice

As a game designer, if you cannot see the value and lessons to be learned from a classic game made in 1983, then you have a long way to go before you truly understand our medium. In truth, I have always seen this book as something of a history lesson for game developers and enthusiasts alike. In addition to the game analysis chapters, this especially comes through in the interviews, which I hope readers enjoy as much for what they tell us about game history as they do for their specific insights into game development. If a reader sees a reference in this book to a game that they are unfamiliar with, it is my hope that they might seek out that title in order to play it. Almost all the games I Introduction to the Second Edition xviii refer to in this book are titles that I consider to be worth anyone's time to play. That said, a big problem for game historians and developers alike is that actually playing a game from twenty or even ten years ago can be quite difficult. If you are an aspiring filmmaker, tracking down almost all the cinema classics stretching back a hundred years is fairly easy. Not so with computer and video games. Emulators have done a lot to help this, but many games that are quite well known and respected are all but unplayable for most people because the systems they worked on no longer run, because the games themselves are out of print, or both.Game Design: Theory and Practice

I believe that our ability to grow as an industry is directly proportional to our ability to understand our past: if we cannot understand it because we cannot play it, our evolution may well be stunted. Throughout this book I discuss what I believe a game designer should think about when developing a game. I have found that one way to improve your game design methodology is to write a book about it. Though I might not recommend this technique to everyone (after all, the bookstores can only bear so many different volumes on the subject), I can testify that it can be quite helpful to take your nose off the grindstone every once in a while and think about games and their development a step or two removed from the day-to-day process of making it happen. I should warn that one unfortunate side effect to writing a book is having your coworkers point out to you whenever you are failing to follow one of the techniques you advocated in print. And therein lies the fundamental problem: regardless of how much you think about game design or try to do everything the best way possible, at the end of the day modern computer games are still incredibly hard to create. I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers, but my hope is that this book will make things a little bit easier, not just for me, but for you as well.

Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
Introduction to the Second Edition ………………… xvii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx
Chapter 1 What Players Want …………………1
Why Do Players Play? ………………………..2
Players Want a Challenge……………………..2
Players Want to Socialize ……………………..3
Players Want a Dynamic Solitary Experience ……………5
Players Want Bragging Rights …………………..5
Players Want an Emotional Experience ………………6
Players Want to Explore ……………………..6
Players Want to Fantasize …………………….7
Players Want to Interact ……………………..8
What Do Players Expect? ………………………8
Players Expect a Consistent World ………………..8
Players Expect to Understand the Game-World's Bounds ……..9
Players Expect Reasonable Solutions to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Players Expect Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Players Expect to Accomplish a Task Incrementally. . . . . . . . . . . 11
Players Expect to Be Immersed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Players Expect Some Setbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Players Expect a Fair Chance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Players Expect to Not Need to Repeat Themselves . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Players Expect to Not Get Hopelessly Stuck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Players Expect to Do, Not to Watch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Players Do Not Know What They Want, but They Know When
It Is Missing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A Never-Ending List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Chapter 2 Interview: Sid Meier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter 3 Brainstorming a Game Idea: Gameplay, Technology,
and Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Starting Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Starting with Gameplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Starting with Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Starting with Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Working with Limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Damage Incorporated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Centipede 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
The Suffering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Embrace Your Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Established Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The Case of the Many Mushrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
The Time Allotted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
If You Choose Not to Decide, You Still Have Made a Choice . . . . . . . . 56
Chapter 4 Game Analysis: Centipede . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Classic Arcade Game Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Input. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Interconnectedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Escalating Tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
One Person, One Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Chapter 5 Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Establishing Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
An Example: Winter Carnival Whirlwind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
The Function of the Focus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Maintaining Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Fleshing Out the Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Changing Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Sub-Focuses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Using Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Chapter 6 Interview: Ed Logg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Chapter 7 The Elements of Gameplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Unique Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Anticipatory versus Complex Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Emergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Non-Linearity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Types of Non-Linearity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Implementation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
The Purpose of Non-Linearity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Modeling Reality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Teaching the Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Input/Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Controls and Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Output and Game-World Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Basic Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Chapter 8 Game Analysis: Tetris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Puzzle Game or Action Game? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Tetris as a Classic Arcade Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
The Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Contents
x
Artificial Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Escalating Tension. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Simplicity and Symmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Fifteen Years On, Who Would Publish Tetris? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Chapter 9 Artificial Intelligence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Goals of Game AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Challenge the Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Not Do Dumb Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Be Unpredictable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Assist Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Create a Living World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
The Sloped Playing Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
How Real Is Too Real? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
AI Agents and Their Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
How Good Is Good Enough? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Artificial Stupidity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Chapter 10 Interview: Steve Meretzky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Chapter 11 Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Designer's Story Versus Player's Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Places for Storytelling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Out-of-Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
In-Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
External Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Linear Writing Pitfalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Player Character Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Game Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Non-Linearity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Working with the Gameplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
The Dream. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Chapter 12 Game Analysis: Loom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Focused Game Mechanics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
The Drafts System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Difficulty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Loom as an Adventure Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Chapter 13 Multi-Player. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Motivations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
The Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Single System Multi-Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Online Multi-Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Contents
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Design Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Playing to Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Protect Newbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Socialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Development Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Playtesting and User Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
A World of Their Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Chapter 14 Interview: Chris Crawford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Chapter 15 Getting the Gameplay Working . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
The Organic Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Too Much Too Soon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Keep It Simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Building the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Core Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Incremental Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
A Fully Functional Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Going Through Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
When Is It Fun? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Chapter 16 Game Analysis: Myth: The Fallen Lords . . . . . . . . 296
Use of Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Game Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Hard-Core Gaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Multi-Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
A Cohesive Whole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Chapter 17 Game Development Documentation . . . . . . . . . . 306
Document Your Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Concept Document, Pitch Document, or Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Competitive Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Design Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Flowcharts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Story Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Art Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
The Game Minute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Storyboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Technical Design Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Schedules and Business/Marketing Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
No Standard Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
The Benefits of Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Contents
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Chapter 18 Interview: Jordan Mechner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Chapter 19 The Design Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
The Writing Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
The Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Table of Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Introduction/Overview or Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Game Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Artificial Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
Game Elements: Characters, Items, and Objects/Mechanisms . . . . 369
Story Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Game Progression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
System Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
One Man's Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Inauspicious Design Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
The Wafer-Thin or Ellipsis Special Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
The Back-Story Tome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
The Overkill Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
The Pie-in-the-Sky Document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
The Fossilized Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
A Matter of Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Getting It Read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Documentation Is Only the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Chapter 20 Game Analysis: The Sims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Abdicating Authorship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
Familiar Subject Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Safe Experimentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Depth and Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Controlled Versus Autonomous Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
A Lesson to Be Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Chapter 21 Designing Design Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
Desired Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
Visualizing the Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
The Big Picture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Jumping into the Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Editing the World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Scripting Languages and Object Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Us Versus Them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
The Best of Intentions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
A Game Editor for All Seasons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Contents
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Chapter 22 Interview: Will Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Chapter 23 Level Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Levels in Different Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
Level Separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Level Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
The Components of a Level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Puzzle Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
Balancing It All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
Level Flow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
Elements of Good Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Players Cannot Get Stuck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Sub-Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Landmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Critical Path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Limited Backtracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Success the First Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Navigable Areas Clearly Marked . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
A Personal List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
The Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Step 1. Preliminary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Step 2. Conceptual and Sketched Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
Step 3. Base Architecture/Block Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
Step 4. Refine Architecture Until It Is Fun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
Step 5. Base Gameplay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
Step 6. Refine Gameplay Until It Is Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Step 7. Refine Aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Step 8. Playtesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
Process Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
Who Does Level Design? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
Collaboration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
Chapter 24 Game Analysis: Grand Theft Auto III . . . . . . . . . . 475
Believable Game-World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
A Living City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
Actions and Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Chapter 25 Playtesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
Finding the Right Testers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
Who Should Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
Contents
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Who Should Not Test. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
When to Test. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
How to Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
Guided and Unguided Testing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
Balancing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
Your Game Is Too Hard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
The Artistic Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Chapter 26 Interview: Doug Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
The Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
The Motive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534
Appendix A Sample Design Document: Atomic Sam . . . . . . . . 535
I. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539
II. Game Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
III. Artificial Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
IV. Game Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561
V. Story Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
VI. Game Progression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
VII. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Appendix B Sample Design Document: The Suffering. . . . . . . . 579
Section I: Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Section II: Game Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
Controls Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616
Section III: Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
Section IV: NPCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622
Section V: Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630
Section VI: Gameflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638
Section VIII: Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655
Selected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677

What Is Game Design?

What, then, is game design? Having defined what exactly I mean when I refer to gameplay, the notion of game design is quite easily explained: the game design is what determines the form of the gameplay. The game design determines what choices players will be able to make in the game-world and what ramifications those choices will have on the rest of the game. The game design determines what win or loss criteria the game may include, how the user will be able to control the game, and what information the game will communicate to him, and it establishes how hard the game will be. In short, the game design determines every detail of how the gameplay will function.