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

Traditional narrative models


We can identify two main models to structure a video game narrative, the three-act story and the Monomyth (or hero's journey). Of course, these are not the only existing two, but they are the most used and the ones from which other structure have developed. The monomyth, as we're going to see, is a more specific and elaborate version of the three-act story that doesn't only cover the story structure but also the characters that live in it.

These two models are a great starting point for understanding the deep relationship between narrative and games. Don't be scared by the fact that most stories share the same core structure. It's been this way for hundreds of years, and nonetheless so many different stories have been told. For sure, there are other ways to tell a story, there's so much more still to discover and invent. But our advice is always to master the fundamental rules before attempting to change or disrupt them!

Three-act story

The concept behind the three...