Book Image

Practical Game Design

By : Adam Kramarzewski, Ennio De Nucci
Book Image

Practical Game Design

By: Adam Kramarzewski, Ennio De Nucci

Overview of this book

If you are looking for an up-to-date and highly applicable guide to game design, then you have come to the right place! Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of game design with this book, written by two highly experienced industry professionals to share their profound insights as well as give valuable advice on creating games across genres and development platforms. Practical Game Design covers the basics of game design one piece at a time. Starting with learning how to conceptualize a game idea and present it to the development team, you will gradually move on to devising a design plan for the whole project and adapting solutions from other games. You will also discover how to produce original game mechanics without relying on existing reference material, and test and eliminate anticipated design risks. You will then design elements that compose the playtime of a game, followed by making game mechanics, content, and interface accessible to all players. You will also find out how to simultaneously ensure that the gameplay mechanics and content are working as intended. As the book reaches its final chapters, you will learn to wrap up a game ahead of its release date, work through the different challenges of designing free-to-play games, and understand how to significantly improve their quality through iteration, polishing and playtesting.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Playable characters, NPCs, and enemies


There are three different types of characters in a video game:

  • Playable characters: These are the characters the player directly controls. In some games there is just one (the main protagonist), while in some other games, there are multiple protagonists. Sometimes the player can temporarily take control of an NPC. In other games, there might not be protagonists at all. In a strategy game such as Starcraft, for example, the player controls units. Some of those units might be unique heroes or commanders, some might be vehicles: tanks or even spaceships. The rules for creating a protagonist such as Joel in The Last of Us or a Battlecruiser unit in Starcraft might be very different, but in the end, the principles you use to conceptualize and design them are not so different.
  • Non-Playable Characters (NPC): NPCs are characters that inhabit the game world, but are not playable by the player. They are controlled by predetermined behaviors designed by the game...