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

Vectors of monetization

Buying a knife skin in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and purchasing a lollipop hammer in Candy Crush are two entirely different experiences. The first is driven by desire, the other by frustration. Knife skins give players a way to express themselves and provide visual variety, but they have no effect on gameplay.

The value of the lollipop hammer, on the other hand, is almost entirely dependent on its gameplay impact, since it is a useful tool that helps you get past difficult situations. Your offering has to closely match your game and the desires of your players.

There are five distinct vectors used to drive in-game monetization models, as follows:

  • Time
  • Difficulty
  • Playable content
  • Non-playable content
  • In-game advertisements

We’ll explore these vectors one by one and pay close attention to their effect on gameplay, progression, structure, and the player’s emotional state.

Time

This monetization vector...