Game Design Workshop
A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition
Preview
Book Description
This book helps you to create the digital games you love to play, using a non-technical approach to game design without the need for programming or artistic experience.
Award-winning author Tracy Fullerton demystifies the creative process with clear and accessible guidance on the formal and dramatic systems of game design. Using examples of popular games, illustrations of design techniques, and refined exercises to strengthen your understanding of how game systems function, the book gives you the skills and tools necessary to create a compelling and engaging game.
This fully updated 4th edition includes expanded coverage of new platforms and genres of play, including casual games and games for learning. It expands on agile development processes and includes a host of new perspectives from top industry game designers.
Game Design Workshop puts you to work prototyping, playtesting, and revising your own games with time-tested methods and tools. These skills will provide the foundation for your career in any facet of the game industry including design, producing, programming, and visual design.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 The Role of the Game Designer; Chapter 2 The Structure of Games; Chapter 3 Working with Formal Elements; Chapter 4 Working with Dramatic Elements; Chapter 5 Working with System Dynamics; Chapter 6 Conceptualization; Chapter 7 Prototyping; Chapter 8 Digital Prototyping; Chapter 9 Playtesting; Chapter 10 Functionality, Completeness, and Balance; Chapter 11 Fun and Accessibility; Chapter 12 Team Structures; Chapter 13 Stages of Development; The Design Document; Chapter 15 Understanding the Game Industry ; Chapter 16 Selling Yourself and Your Ideas to the Game Industry
Author(s)
Biography
Tracy Fullerton is an award-winning game designer and educator with over 20 years of professional experience, most recently winning the Games for Change Game of the Year Award for her independent game Walden, a game. She has also been awarded the 2016 GDC Ambassador Award, the 2015 Games for Change Game Changer Award, and the IndieCade 2013 Trailblazer award for her pioneering work in the independent games community. Tracy is a Professor of Interactive Media & Games at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the Director of the USC Games Program, the #1 game design program in North America as ranked by the Princeton Review
Reviews
"Game Design Workshop is a truly great book, and has become, in my opinion, the de facto standard text for beginner- to intermediate-level game design education. This updated new edition is extremely relevant, useful and inspiring to all kinds of game designers."
Richard Lemarchand, Interactive Media & Games Division, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California.
"This is the perfect time for a new edition. The updates refresh elements of the book that are important as examples, but don't radically alter the thing about the book that is great: a playcentric approach to game design."Colleen Macklin, Associate Professor, Parsons The New School for Design.
"Tracy Fullerton’s Game Design Workshop covers pretty much everything a working or wannabe game designer needs to know. She covers game theory, concepting, prototyping, testing and tuning, with stops along the way to discuss what it means to a professional game designer and how to land a job. When I started thinking about my game studies course at the University of Texas at Austin, this was one book I knew I had to use."Warren Spector, Studio Director, OtherSide Entertainment.