Games Design and Play

<p><strong>The play-focused step-by-step guide to creating great game designs</strong></p> <p>This book offers a <em>play-focused process-oriented</em> approach for designing games people will love to play. Drawing on a combined 35 years of design and teaching experience Colleen Macklin and John Sharp link the concepts and elements of play to the practical tasks of game design. Using full-color examples they reveal how real game designers think and work and illuminate the amazing expressive potential of great game design.</p> <p>Focusing on practical details this book guides you from idea to prototype to playtest and fully realized design. You'll walk through conceiving and creating a game's inner workings including its core actions themes and especially its play experience. Step by step you'll assemble every component of your videogame creating practically every kind of play: from cooperative to competitive from chance-based to role-playing and everything in between.</p> <p>Macklin and Sharp believe that games are for <em>everyone</em> and game design is an exciting art form with a nearly unlimited array of styles forms and messages. Cutting across traditional platform and genre boundaries they help you find inspiration wherever it exists.</p> <p><strong><em>Games Design and Play</em></strong> is for all game design students and for beginning-to-intermediate-level game professionals especially independent game designers. Bridging the gaps between imagination and production it will help you craft outstanding designs for incredible play experiences!</p> <p><strong>Coverage includes: </strong></p> <ul> <li>Understanding core elements of play design: actions goals rules objects playspace and players</li> <li>Mastering tools such as constraint interaction goals challenges strategy chance decision storytelling and context</li> <li>Comparing types of play and player experiences</li> <li>Considering the demands videogames make on players</li> <li>Establishing a game's design values</li> <li>Creating design documents schematics and tracking spreadsheets</li> <li>Collaborating in teams on a shared design vision</li> <li>Brainstorming and conceptualizing designs</li> <li>Using prototypes to realize and playtest designs</li> <li>Improving designs by making the most of playtesting feedback</li> <li>Knowing when a design is ready for production</li> <li>Learning the rules so you can break them!</li> </ul>