1st Edition

Creating Games Mechanics, Content, and Technology

    500 Pages
    by A K Peters/CRC Press

    Creating Games offers a comprehensive overview of the technology, content, and mechanics of game design. It emphasizes the broad view of a games team and teaches you enough about your teammates' areas so that you can work effectively with them. The authors have included many worksheets and exercises to help get your small indie team off the ground.

    Special features:

    • Exercises at the end of each chapter combine comprehension tests with problems that help the reader interact with the material
    • Worksheet exercises provide creative activities to help project teams generate new ideas and then structure them in a modified version of the format of a game industry design document
    • Pointers to the best resources for digging deeper into each specialized area of game development
    • Website with worksheets, figures from the book, and teacher materials including study guides, lecture presentations, syllabi, supplemental exercises, and assessment materials

    Contents

    Preface

    Minigame Design Exercise
    Design
    Internal Playtest
    Revision
    Kleenex™ Playtest
    Discussion
    20-Minute Variation
    Exploration

    The Process of Development and Theory of Design
    What Is a Game?
    Levels of Abstraction
    Emergence and Progression
    Development Roles
    Design as Theory
    Industry Structure
    Exercises
    Resources

    Managing Innovation
    How Hard Can It Be?
    Attitude
    Organization Chart
    Consistency
    Inspiration
    Brainstorming
    Scheduling
    Managing Risk
    Exercises
    Resources

    Critique and Proposal
    Critique
    Generating Ideas
    Format
    Examples
    Exercises
    Resources

    The Design Document
    Title Page
    Executive Summary
    Overview
    Related Games
    Player Composites
    World
    Characters
    Plot Graphs
    Art Direction
    User Interface Storyboards
    Tags and Dialogue
    Technology Plan
    Software Architecture
    Controls
    Level Design
    Mechanics Analysis
    Schedule and Related Elements
    Budget
    Change Log
    Exercises
    Resources

    Game Technology
    Document Tools
    Asset Management Tools
    Art Tools
    Runtime Technology for Video Games
    Licensing
    Exercises

    Strategic Thought
    State
    Graphs
    State Machine
    Decision Trees
    Algorithms
    Search
    Complexity
    Heuristics
    Game Theory
    Exercises
    Choice and Probability
    Statistics and Probability
    Random Variables
    Generating Random Numbers
    Cards and Dice
    Outcome Tree
    Combining Probabilities
    Expected Value
    Variance
    Compound Expressions
    Case Study: Settlers of Catan
    Exercises
    Resources

    Balance
    Our Methodology
    Before Balance
    Fairness
    Stability
    Engagement
    The Role of Randomness
    What Players Value
    Optimizing for Real People
    Exercises
    Resources

    Mechanics
    Techniques for the First Move
    Character Building
    Action
    Lock-and-Key
    Geometry
    Superunit
    Rock-Paper-Scissors
    Combat Simulation
    Effect Distance
    Rush Prevention
    Dialogue Trees
    Economy
    Ensuring Entropy
    Reward Cycles and Minigames
    Resources

    Creating a World
    Setting
    Motivations for Setting
    Characters and Plot
    Geography
    Exercises
    Resources

    Art Direction
    Visual Language
    Reference Art
    Concept Art
    3D Art Roles

    3D Modeling
    Triangle Mesh
    Particle System
    Texture Map
    Materials
    Exercises
    Resources

    Real-Time Rendering
    Graphics Processor (GPU)
    Lighting
    Exercises
    Resources

    Physical Simulation
    Newtonian Mechanics
    Newton’s Laws of Motion for a Particle
    Solving Equations of Motion
    Verlet Integration
    Rigid Body Dynamics
    Collision Detection, Response, and Friction
    Constraints and Articulated Bodies
    Articulated Kinematics and Motion Control
    Particle Systems and Natural Phenomena
    Resources
    Exercises

    Network Programming
    An Extended Analogy
    Protocols
    Ethernet
    Routing
    Transmission Protocols
    Network Address Translation (NAT)
    Lag
    Synchronization and Topology
    Matchmaking
    Security
    APIs
    Exercises
    Resources

    User Input
    Touch-Based Input
    Optical Character Recognition
    Mice
    Inertial-Based Input and Global Positioning
    Light and Positional Guns
    Sound-Based Input
    Camera-Based Input
    Exercises

    Artificial Intelligence
    What Is AI?
    How Smart Does My AI Really Need to Be?
    Embodied Autonomous Agents
    Decision Making: Reaction and Deliberation
    Learning
    Exercises
    Resources

    Social Issues
    Ratings and Content
    Industry Quality of Life
    Real and Virtual Economies
    Resources

    Appendices
    A. Minigame Worksheet
    B. Overview Worksheet
    C. Technology Plan Worksheet
    D. Budget Worksheet
    E. Schedule Worksheet
    F. The Games Canon
    Bibliography
    Index

    Biography

    Morgan McGuire is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Williams College, where he teaches computer graphics and games. He is also a games industry consultant with credits including Titan Quest (2006), ROBLOX (2005), Zen of Sudoku (2007), and a yet-unannounced Activision title. He received his Ph.D in Computer Science from Brown University.

    Odest Chadwicke Jenkins is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Brown University. In 2007, Jenkins received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and Young Investigator funding from the Office of Naval Research. He received his Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

    Williams College Professor Morgan McGuire takes his games very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he has written a book about it. ... While teaching his game design class, McGuire couldn't find a book that covered this, so he called up his colleague Professor Chad Jenkins at Brown, and they co-wrote the book to help other people design games. It combines scientific theories about rule systems with more practical advice about the process of designing a game.
           -- L452The Berkshire Eagle , November 2008


    Apply Game Design as a Science for Public Policy to Rescue Economy, Planet: They are all subject to analysis as games: scenarios where intelligent agents (players) seek to maximize their payoff (win) under a set of rules. Although some seem like fun and others like work, an understanding of each instance informs the others, and insights for any improve how we both work and play.
           -- Morgan McGuire, Infinite Connection, April 2009


    The writing is friendly and just casual enough that the authors' personalities come through. The book is engaging, clear, and well focused. The text combines a general survey of each topic with occasional asides offering specific and well-chosen detail. This combination gives the book a sense of confident authority. . . .This ambitious, wide-ranging book succeeds in giving its readers a broad overview of many topics that contribute to contemporary video game design. For someone who has never worked in the field, this book will give a general understanding of how a game is designed, the working of a modern studio, the roles of different departments and the people in them, the tools they use, and the technical issues that are important to them. The exercises at the end of each chapter enhance the book's value as a course textbook.
    With its wealth of information on many subjects important to game design, the book would serve well as an introductory text for a student considering a career as a game designer.
           -- Andrew Glassner, SIAM, January 2010