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

Basics of F2P monetization

Setting up and balancing the game economy, player progression rate, and monetization model can be a daunting and time-consuming job. In well-staffed teams, these duties are addressed by a dedicated specialist, often known as an economy designer. In smaller, less specialized teams, the heavy burden of creating a successful game economy will often fall onto the generalist game designer.

In theory, the business model of F2P games is simple. Lower the barrier to entry (free download) to attract a large audience, retain your players with fun gameplay, and provide them with ample opportunities to express themselves, save time, and enhance their gameplay by paying.

In practice, it’s a huge challenge, especially since you’re operating within a saturated market and with an increasingly savvy audience that often expects to get most of their content for free, even after playing your game for months or even years. To have any hopes of succeeding in...