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

Chapter 14. The Final 10%

Have you ever heard of the 80/20 rule?

It states that 80% of most effects are caused by just 20% of the possible causes.

It is known as the Pareto Principle, named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian scientist who postulated a mathematical distribution to describe many social and natural phenomena.

Some examples:

  • 20% of the clients of a company account for 80% of its revenues
  • 80% of a company's sales come from 20% of its products
  • 80% of global world wealth is owned by 20% of the population
  • 80% of crimes are committed by 20% of criminals
  • 20% of the posts on social networks generate 80% of traffic

It is obviously a rule of thumb, but you'd be surprised how accurate it can be!

In fact, we can safely state that:

"80% of a game is made in the final 20% of the time"

I know, the chapter is called The Final 10%. Based on what we've just said, it should have been called The Final 80%. But that wouldn't really help with the point we're trying to make here.

The problem with the so-called...