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

Teaching game systems

Teaching and introducing new rules and mechanics is often as difficult as creating them. The first step is, as always, to acknowledge and respect the differing tastes and preferences of your audience, not only toward certain types of games but also the ways in which they like to learn and tackle challenges. You also have to prepare for different levels of exposure to similar games and relatable life experiences.

We all have our preferred learning style, and even though researchers are having a hard time settling on a particular definition and categorization, they all seem to agree that each individual is primed toward a particular set of learning techniques. Some people like to listen, some prefer to read, and others still skip all text and try to figure things out by following visual cues.

A highly successful strategy is to mix several teaching methods into a combination that works well within the confines of the story, game structure, target platform,...