A Practical Match

Arm yourself with the practical skills and cutting-edge insights necessary to successfully design captivating games across a variety of genres and platforms with the help of this part-color guide Key Features Master the skills, processes, and techniques essential for working in a professional setting Grasp the core principles and processes of level design, world building, and storytelling Design, implement, and refine high-quality features and mechanics for contemporary video games Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionIf you’re in search of a cutting-edge actionable guide to game design, your quest ends here! Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of game design with expert guidance from veterans with decades of game design experience across a variety of genres and platforms. The second edition of this book remains dedicated to its original goal of helping you master the fundamentals of game design in a practical manner with the addition of some of the latest trends in game design and a whole lot of fresh, real-world examples from games of the current generation. This update brings a new chapter on games as a service, explaining the evolving role of the game designer and diving deeper into the design of games that are meant to be played forever. From conceptualizing a game idea, you’ll gradually move on to devising a design plan and adapting solutions from existing games, exploring the craft of producing original game mechanics, and eliminating anticipated design risks through testing. You’ll then be introduced to level design, interactive storytelling, user experience and accessibility. By the end of this game design book, you’ll have learned how to wrap up a game ahead of its release date, work through the challenges of designing free-to-play games and games as a service, and significantly improve their quality through iteration, playtesting, and polishing.What you will learn Define the scope and structure of a game project Conceptualize a game idea and present it to others Design gameplay systems and communicate them clearly and thoroughly Build and validate engaging game mechanics Design successful games as a service and prepare them for live operations Improve the quality of a game through playtesting and meticulous polishing Who this book is for Whether you are a student eager to design your very first game or a game designer looking to expand your skill set, this book will help you master the fundamentals of game design across all stages of game development. With a focus on best practices and a pragmatic approach, Practical Game Design offers insights into the art and craft of game design from two senior game designers, with insider knowledge that even veterans will find valuable. While prior experience with game development is not absolutely necessary, having basic knowledge of popular video games will prove helpful.

Jump into the world of Game AI development About This Book Move beyond using libraries to create smart game AI, and create your own AI projects from scratch Implement the latest algorithms for AI development and in-game interaction Customize your existing game AI and make it better and more efficient to improve your overall game performance Who This Book Is For This book is for game developers with a basic knowledge of game development techniques and some basic programming techniques in C# or C++. What You Will Learn Get to know the basics of how to create different AI for different type of games Know what to do when something interferes with the AI choices and how the AI should behave if that happens Plan the interaction between the AI character and the environment using Smart Zones or Triggering Events Use animations correctly, blending one animation into another and rather than stopping one animation and starting another Calculate the best options for the AI to move using Pruning Strategies, Wall Distances, Map Preprocess Implementation, and Forced Neighbours Create Theta algorithms to the AI to find short and realistic looking paths Add many characters into the same scene and make them behave like a realistic crowd In Detail The book starts with the basics examples of AI for different game genres and directly jumps into defining the probabilities and possibilities of the AI character to determine character movement. Next, you'll learn how AI characters should behave within the environment created. Moving on, you'll explore how to work with animations. You'll also plan and create pruning strategies, and create Theta algorithms to find short and realistic looking game paths. Next, you'll learn how the AI should behave when there is a lot of characters in the same scene. You'll explore which methods and algorithms, such as possibility maps, Forward Chaining Plan, Rete Algorithm, Pruning Strategies, Wall Distances, and Map Preprocess Implementation should be used on different occasions. You'll discover how to overcome some limitations, and how to deliver a better experience to the player. By the end of the book, you think differently about AI. Style and approach The book has a step-by-step tutorial style approach. The algorithms are explained by implementing them in #.

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Bringing together leading match-fixing researchers from different fields, this book offers new theoretical and applied perspectives on this persistent problem in sport and wider society. The book explores the foundations of match-fixing from multiple viewpoints, from sociology and criminology to policy and governance, exploring topics such as the use of network governance theory, ethics and integrity, and management aspects that position match-fixing in sport’s commercial landscape. Featuring cases and data from all around the world, the book explains how match-fixing has become a prominent feature of contemporary sport, and considers the efficacy and practicability of interventions to solve these problems. This is fascinating and important reading for any advanced student, researcher, practitioner, or policymaker with an interest in sport management, sports business, sport policy, sport development, sport law, or criminology.

Ad hoc and interdisciplinary, the field of interaction design claims no unified theory. Yet guidelines are needed. In essays by 26 major thinkers and designers, this book presents the rich mosaic of ideas which nourish the lively art of interaction design. The editors introduction is a critical survey of interaction design with a debt and contribut