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

Additive and subtractive design


Our previous Super Meat Boy jump example is a perfect introduction to the topic we're going to discuss: additive and subtractive design.

By taking out that gravity element, Meat Boy's developers have subtracted from a classic jumping mechanic, while on the other hand they have added to the mechanic by allowing wall jumping.

Additive and subtractive design is the principle behind any adaptation of game mechanics.

Additive design, in particular, is what game developers have always used to create new video games. Expanding and improving existing game mechanics is the lifeblood of game design as much as introducing new groundbreaking ones.

Subtractive game design though is probably even more important.

We talked already about the Less is more principle and how it should be applied throughout the whole design and its documentation. Applying this principle in game mechanics is not only a matter of elegance; it can help game designers to discover (or re-discover) the...