Designing Games

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

When making games for kids, it’s tempting to simply wing-it on the design. We were all children once, right? The reality is that adults are far removed from the cognitive changes and the motor skill challenges that are the hallmark of the developing child. Designing Games for Children, helps you understand these developmental needs of children and how to effectively apply them to games. Whether you’re a seasoned game designer, a children's media professional, or an instructor teaching the next generation of game designers, Designing Games for Children is the first book dedicated to service the specific needs of children's game designers. This is a hands-on manual of child psychology as it relates to game design and the common challenges designers face. Designing Games for Children is the definitive, comprehensive guide to making great games for kids, featuring: Guidelines and recommendations divided by the most common target audiences – babies and toddlers (0-2), preschoolers (3-5), early elementary students (6-8), and tweens (9-12). Approachable and actionable breakdown of child developmental psychology, including cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development, as it applies to game design Game design insights and guidelines for all aspects of game production, from ideation to marketing

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

"This book brings together the diverse and growing community of voices on ethics in gaming and begins to define the field, identify its primary challenges and questions, and establish the current state of the discipline"--Provided by publisher.

Every educator's imaginative instincts will be guided by this book's practical design method, which harnesses the power of play for student learning. Teachers from all disciplines and levels can create a full spectrum of engaging exercises through the authors' six accessible ALLURE steps: Ask where to apply the play. List the mental moves. Link the mental moves to the play. Understand how the learning principles operate. Run the activity-game. Evaluate the learner experience. Along with principles from game-based learning pedagogy, readers will explore a framework of original complex mechanic teaching templates, which will help their fledgling instructional activities cross the bridge into fully formed games. Beginners and veterans will find multiple entry points, from adding a single playful element (student roles to discussions) to more elaborate designs (riddles and simulations). They will also learn different levels of producing physical tabletop components (cards, boards, plastic pieces) or light digital options (discussion board riddles, Google Slides games). Born from the authors' extensive experiences running professional development workshops, this guide has been frequently requested by teachers at the secondary school and college levels, librarians, instructional designers, and others caught by the allure of educational games and play. Book Features: Offers hands-on, practical advice about how to be more playful with your students, with a focus on nondigital activities and games. Written in the language of instructional design, so advanced knowledge about games or technology is not required. Provides creative instructional techniques that will boost student engagement for both in-person and online instruction. Includes more than two dozen original illustrations and designs to aid understanding. Addresses the need for accessible, inclusive learning environments.

This book helps you to create the digital games you love to play, using a non-technical approach to game design without the need for programming or artistic experience. Award-winning author Tracy Fullerton demystifies the creative process with clear and accessible guidance on the formal and dramatic systems of game design. Using examples of popular games, illustrations of design techniques, and refined exercises to strengthen your understanding of how game systems function, the book gives you the skills and tools necessary to create a compelling and engaging game. This fully updated 4th edition includes expanded coverage of new platforms and genres of play, including casual games and games for learning. It expands on agile development processes and includes a host of new perspectives from top industry game designers. Game Design Workshop puts you to work prototyping, playtesting, and revising your own games with time-tested methods and tools. These skills will provide the foundation for your career in any facet of the game industry including design, producing, programming, and visual design.

Design Games for Architecture teaches you how to create playful software tools based on your architectural design processes, whether or not you are familiar with game design technology. The book combines the fun and engaging aspects of video games to ease the sometimes complex process of learning software development. By working through exercises illustrated with screen shots and code, you acquire knowledge about each step required to build useful tools you can use to accomplish design tasks. Steps include analysing design processes to identify their logic, translating that logic into a collection of objects and functions, then encoding the design procedure into a working software tool. Examples presented in the book are design games---tools that a designer “plays” like video games---that span a wide range of design activities. These software tools are built using Unity, free, innovative, and industry-leading software for video game development. Unity speeds up the process of software creation, offers an interface that will be familiar to you, and includes very advanced tools for creating forms, effects, and interactivity. If you are looking to add cutting-edge skills to your repertoire, then Design Games will help you sharpen your design thinking and allow you to specialize in this new territory while you learn more about your own design processes.

Designing and playing your own board games can be a lot of fun. Through simple text written to foster creativity and problem solving, students will learn the art of innovation. Large, colorful images show students how to complete activities. Additional tools, including a glossary and an index, help students learn new vocabulary and locate information.