Book Image

Practical Game Design - Second Edition

By : Adam Kramarzewski, Ennio De Nucci
Book Image

Practical Game Design - Second Edition

By: Adam Kramarzewski, Ennio De Nucci

Overview of this book

If you’re in search of a cutting-edge actionable guide to game design, your quest ends here! Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of game design with expert guidance from veterans with decades of game design experience across a variety of genres and platforms. The second edition of this book remains dedicated to its original goal of helping you master the fundamentals of game design in a practical manner with the addition of some of the latest trends in game design and a whole lot of fresh, real-world examples from games of the current generation. This update brings a new chapter on games as a service, explaining the evolving role of the game designer and diving deeper into the design of games that are meant to be played forever. From conceptualizing a game idea, you’ll gradually move on to devising a design plan and adapting solutions from existing games, exploring the craft of producing original game mechanics, and eliminating anticipated design risks through testing. You’ll then be introduced to level design, interactive storytelling, user experience and accessibility. By the end of this game design book, you’ll have learned how to wrap up a game ahead of its release date, work through the challenges of designing free-to-play games and games as a service, and significantly improve their quality through iteration, playtesting, and polishing.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
12
Chapter 12: Building a Great User Interface and User Experience

Summary

In this chapter, we learned about three interconnected subjects that come together to help you make a game full of varied and exciting gameplay scenarios.

To start with, we looked at game balancing, which helps us increase the possibility space by addressing dominant strategies, tuning mechanics, and changing the parameters of game content. Following that, we explored the methods of setting and adjusting the overall difficulty of the game, helping us match it with the capabilities of our audience.

Finally, we looked at pacing, which allows us to maintain a player’s interest and keep them in the flow by manipulating the structure and relative intensity of each gameplay session.

Next up, we’ll dive into Chapter 12, Building a Great User Interface and User Experience, which covers practical tips and guidelines on how to present information, set your controls, build a heads-up display, and turn every interaction into a delightful experience.