Advanced Game Design

In Advanced Game Design, pioneering game designer and instructor Michael Sellers situates game design practices in a strong theoretical framework of systems thinking, enabling designers to think more deeply and clearly about their work, so they can produce better, more engaging games for any device or platform. Sellers offers a deep unifying framework in which practical game design best practices and proven systems thinking theory reinforce each other, helping game designers understand what they are trying to accomplish and the best ways to achieve it. Drawing on 20+ years of experience designing games, launching game studios, and teaching game design, Sellers explains: What games are, and how systems thinking can help you think about them more clearly How to systematically promote engagement, interactivity, and fun What you can learn from MDA and other game design frameworks How to create gameplay and core loops How to design the entire player experience, and how to build game mechanics that work together to create that experience How to capture your game’s “big idea” and Unique Selling Proposition How to establish high-level and background design and translate it into detailed design How to build, playtest, and iterate early prototypes How to build your game design career in a field that keeps changing at breakneck speed

This in-depth resource teaches you to craft mechanics that generate challenging, enjoyable, and well-balanced gameplay. You’ll discover at what stages to prototype, test, and implement mechanics in games and learn how to visualize and simulate game mechanics in order to design better games. Along the way, you’ll practice what you’ve learned with hands-on lessons. A free downloadable simulation tool developed by Joris Dormans is also available in order to follow along with exercises in the book in an easy-to-use graphical environment. In Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design, you’ll learn how to: * Design and balance game mechanics to create emergent gameplay before you write a single line of code. * Visualize the internal economy so that you can immediately see what goes on in a complex game. * Use novel prototyping techniques that let you simulate games and collect vast quantities of gameplay data on the first day of development. * Apply design patterns for game mechanics—from a library in this book—to improve your game designs. * Explore the delicate balance between game mechanics and level design to create compelling, long-lasting game experiences. * Replace fixed, scripted events in your game with dynamic progression systems to give your players a new experience every time they play. "I've been waiting for a book like this for ten years: packed with game design goodness that tackles the science without undermining the art." --Richard Bartle, University of Essex, co-author of the first MMORPG “Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Joris Dormans & Ernest Adams formalizes game grammar quite well. Not sure I need to write a next book now!” -- Raph Koster, author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design.

How do you make a video game? Advanced Game Design with HTML5 and JavaScript is a down to earth education in how to make video games from scratch, using the powerful HTML5 and JavaScript technologies. This book is a point-by-point round up of all the essential techniques that every game designer needs to know. You'll discover how to create and render game graphics, add interactivity, sound, and animation. You’ll learn how to build your own custom game engine with reusable components so that you can quickly develop games with maximum impact and minimum code. You’ll also learn the secrets of vector math and advanced collision detection techniques, all of which are covered in a friendly and non-technical manner. You'll find detailed working examples, with hundreds of illustrations and thousands of lines of source code that you can freely adapt for your own projects. All the math and programming techniques are elaborately explained and examples are open-ended to encourage you to think of original ways to use these techniques in your own games. You can use what you learn in this book to make games for desktops, mobile phones, tablets or the Web. Advanced Game Design with HTML5 and JavaScript is a great next step for experienced programmers or ambitious beginners who already have some JavaScript experience, and want to jump head first into the world of video game development. It’s also great follow-up book for readers of Foundation Game Design with HTML5 and JavaScript (by the same author) who want to add depth and precision to their skills. The game examples in this book use pure JavaScript, so you can code as close to the metal as possible without having to be dependent on any limiting frameworks or game engines. No libraries, no dependencies, no third-party plugins: just you, your computer, and the code. If you’re looking for a book to take your game design skills into the stratosphere and beyond, this is it!

Creating games in Flash is a never-ending journey of exploration, learning, and most of all, fun. Once you’ve mastered the basics, a new world is opened up to you, enabling you to take your existing skills to the next level and discover new skills that will in turn open new doors. This book is a direct continuation of Foundation Game Design with Flash, and is a complete point-by-point roundup of the most important skills a Flash game designer needs to know. You’ll increase your ActionScript knowledge and your game design skills while creating some excellent example games. You’ll learn advanced collision detection skills; professional AI and pathfinding; and how to load and save game data, create destructible environments, and build and switch game levels. Each chapter highlights a new advanced technique illustrated by practical examples. Examples of games are given in a variety of genres, all of which take an object-oriented programming approach. Advanced game design topics are covered, including vector-based collision reaction, pathfinding, billiard ball physics, and modeling game data.

Good game design happens when you view your game from as many perspectives as possible. Written by one of the world's top game designers, The Art of Game Design presents 100+ sets of questions, or different lenses, for viewing a game’s design, encompassing diverse fields such as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, puzzle design, and anthropology. This Second Edition of a Game Developer Front Line Award winner: Describes the deepest and most fundamental principles of game design Demonstrates how tactics used in board, card, and athletic games also work in top-quality video games Contains valuable insight from Jesse Schell, the former chair of the International Game Developers Association and award-winning designer of Disney online games The Art of Game Design, Second Edition gives readers useful perspectives on how to make better game designs faster. It provides practical instruction on creating world-class games that will be played again and again.

In Advanced Game Design, pioneering game designer and instructor Michael Sellers situates game design practices in a strong theoretical framework of systems thinking, enabling designers to think more deeply and clearly about their work, so they can produce better, more engaging games for any device or platform. Sellers offers a deep unifying framework in which practical game design best practices and proven systems thinking theory reinforce each other, helping game designers understand what they are trying to accomplish and the best ways to achieve it. Drawing on 20+ years of experience designing games, launching game studios, and teaching game design, Sellers explains: What games are, and how systems thinking can help you think about them more clearly How to systematically promote engagement, interactivity, and fun What you can learn from MDA and other game design frameworks How to create gameplay and core loops How to design the entire player experience, and how to build game mechanics that work together to create that experience How to capture your game's "big idea" and Unique Selling Proposition How to establish high-level and background design and translate it into detailed design How to build, playtest, and iterate early prototypes How to build your game design career in a field that keeps changing at breakneck speed

During her time working on genre-defining games like The Sims, Rock Band, and Ultima Online, Amy Jo learned that customers stick with products that help them get better at something they care about, like playing an instrument or leading a team. Amy Jo has used her insights from gaming to help hundreds of companies like Netflix, Disney, The New York Times, Ubisoft and Happify innovate faster and smarter, and drive long-term engagement.

Foundation Game Design with HTML5 and JavaScript teaches you everything you need to know about how to make video games. If you’ve never done any programming before and don’t know where to start, this book will show you how to make games from start to finish. You’ll learn all the latest programming technologies (HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript) to create your games. All written in a fun and friendly style with open-ended projects that encourage you to build your own original games. Foundation Game Design with HTML5 and JavaScript starts by showing you how you can use basic programing to create logic games, adventure games, and create interactive game graphics. Design a game character, learn to control it with the keyboard, mouse, or touch screen interface, and then learn how to use collision detection to build an interactive game world. You’ll learn to make maze games, platform jumping games, and fast paced action games that cover all the popular genres of 2D gaming. Create intelligent enemies, use realistic physics, sound effects and music, and learn how to animate game characters. Whether you're creating games for the web or mobile devices, everything you need to get started on a career as a game designer is right here. Focused and friendly introduction to making games with HTML5. Essential programming and graphic design techniques for building games, with each chapter gently building on the skills of preceding chapters. Detailed case studies demonstrating techniques that can be used for making games in a wide variety of genres.