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

Putting the pieces together

It’s very unlikely that a game would take its final shape by linearly expanding from its narrative beginning to its ultimate ending. During the development, some pieces of the game are developed as modules and all these modules are put together when a playable of some sort is required.

Depending on the size of the project, the designer might have the responsibility of putting everything together. Usually, designers are in charge of setting up the whole game content. Maybe the alpha version included only a single level or mission and now it is time to implement the full game experience.

Feature creep

Once the game is finished, or almost finished, it’s really easy to see what might be missing. The team, with a clearer picture of a semi-finished product, might come up with fresh new ideas, different solutions, or new content. The feeling is that with these kinds of additions, it would be a much better game...if only there was a bit more...