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

Game content

In the context of scope and structure, game content refers to parts of games that are designed to be experienced (or consumed). This would include things such as game levels, items, characters, abilities, vehicles, achievements, weapons, missions, environments, and storylines.

Since the main gameplay mechanics and rules are the essential foundations upon which everything is built, you generally do not treat them as parts of the game content. Instead, you focus on anything that builds upon your foundations, adds value, and increases the lifetime of your game.

In the case of a simple racing title, the content would include all of the tracks, cars, and car parts (including cosmetic items such as paint colors and stickers you can put on your car), as well as the breadth of available game modes (such as time-trial, single-race, tournament, multiplayer head-to-head, career, and so on).

Sounds and music would also be included, but these components are admittedly less...