Developing Virtual Reality Applications: Foundations of Effective Design Review

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Developing Virtual Reality Applications: Foundations of Effective Design ReviewVirtual Reality is a subdivision of computer graphics and the latter is intensely mathematical. But this book eshews a mathematical bent. Instead it offers a sweeping survey of recent [2008-9] applications of VR. You can easily read this and get a good understanding of where VR is being used. The survey spans both academic and industrial/commercial efforts.
The book is also aided by a heavy use of illustrations, many in colour. Quite appropriate given that we are talking about graphics. The figures greatly help the understanding of the text.
One interesting subtopic is augmented reality. Where typically a user wears a special pair of glasses and walks around the real world. Depending on her location and perhaps orientation, the glasses communicate wirelessly with a GIS-aware database that downloads information to be displayed in an overlay fashion on her vision.Developing Virtual Reality Applications: Foundations of Effective Design Overview
Virtual Reality systems enable organizations to cut costs and time, maintain financial and organizational control over the development process, digitally evaluate products before having them created, and allow for greater creative exploration. In this book, VR developers Alan Craig, William Sherman, and Jeffrey Will examine a comprehensive collection of current,unique, and foundational VR applications in a multitude of fields, such as business, science, medicine, art, entertainment, and public safety among others.

An insider's view of what works, what doesn't work, and why, Developing Virtual Reality Applications explores core technical information and background theory as well as the evolution of key applications from their genesis to their most current form. Developmental techniques are cross-referenced between different applications linking information to describe overall VR trends and fundamental best practices. This synergy, coupled with the most up to date research being conducted, provides a hands-on guide for building applications, and an enhanced, panoramic view of VR development. Developing Virtual Reality Applications is an indispensable one-stop reference for anyone working in this burgeoning field.


Dozens of detailed application descriptions provide practical ideas for VR development in ALL areas of interest!
Development techniques are cross referenced between different application areas, providing fundamental best practices!
Includes a media-rich companion website with hours of footage from application demonstrations


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2D Game Building for Teens Review

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2D Game Building for Teens ReviewI just finished the chapter entitled "Your First Game Project" and it was something of an ordeal. Duggan provides us with a series of game scripts which we are to either type into a text editor or the sample version of Torsion which is included on the book's CD. In at least two instances there are typos in this code which cause the intended effect not to occur. I found this out after a lengthy process of comparing the code I typed in with the code as it was printed in the book. I found them to be identical in every case, thus ruling out "operator error". I gave up on that strategy and decided to try and analyze the code to see if I could find any errors. I am not familiar with Torquescript or with C, but I did manage to find the typos and correct them (this thanks to a rudimentary familiarity with HTML and PHP). I can easily imagine how frustrating this would be for a newbie with zero technical knowledge. I am concerned that in subsequent chapters there will be errors that I will not know how to fix and the book will effectively become useless to me.
Because of these errors, I feel that 2D Game Building for Teens is a failure, and not an effective introduction to the Torque Game Builder. I bought the book in part to help me with evaluating the engine. If I used the book as my only yardstick, I would have moved on by now. Fortunately, the demo of the engine which comes on the CD has tutorials which serve to fill in some of the gaps. I could have easily downloaded this demo from Garage Games and saved myself the 20-odd dollars I spent on the book.2D Game Building for Teens OverviewBring your video game ideas to life with 2D Game Building for Teens! Written for anyone with an interest in creating video games, this book will show you how to use the Torque Game Builder, a simple drag-and-drop game engine, to make your very own games to play and share. Following easy-to- understand techniques and directions, you'll work your way through hands-on tutorials that help you put your new skills to use right away as you build simple to more complex games. Everything you need to build your own 2D game can be found in the book, including an introduction to the Torque Game Builder, how to design game graphics, basic programming and scripting techniques, and more. You'll even find an overview of the game development industry to give you an inside look at what it takes to make games, and information on the history of classic 2D games. If you've ever wanted to create your own video games, 2D Game Building for Teens will show you how.

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Write Your Way into Animation and Games: Create a Writing Career in Animation and Games Review

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Write Your Way into Animation and Games: Create a Writing Career in Animation and Games ReviewBefore I can properly apply the book (which is textbook format, though a lot more interesting and fun than normal textbooks) here's a little background. I'm a lifelong writer, just now getting serious about publication, with an abiding passion for film (particularly animation) and video games. While I'm not bad on the designing end of the spectrum, writing is definitely my stronger suit. I researched screenwriting and animation writing in my teens, but, figuring I'd learn all this in film school (all of which accepted me, none of which helped me pay) I never took it seriously.
Fast-forward a few years. I'm still in love with writing; it's still a creative pursuit at which I excel (assuming I work very hard and polish each piece); I still love film, but that expensive hobby understandably got pushed onto a back burner. A few weeks ago, I began to wonder seriously, not idly as I've done for years, about what I could do to write for animation and games. Coincidentally, I stumbled across this book.
"Write Your Way into Animation and Games" is a fabulous resource for beginners, and even intermediates depending on what you're looking for. I was frustrated by the first chapters, which cover screenwriting basics and how to craft a simple story. I read them anyway (in case skipping would cause me to miss something). And I have to say, the advice is clear, concise, brief, thorough, and necessary. It was material I'm highly familiar with, but once I banished the "been through this before" conceit, the refresher did very well for me. I'd urge anyone not actually working in animation (not that you'd be picking up this book if you were) to please go over it. It's a little irritating at times, but the information is still valuable.
After the basics, it delves progressively deeper in terms of technique and resources. The information on animation writing, from script format to page count to dialogue and action balance, was fantastic. Without setting out any unbreakable rules, it gives a very clear idea of expectations and guidelines, which is much, much more helpful that something along the lines of "you always have to do this exactly this way."
My only disappointment--and it was fairly minor--was a relative lack of gaming resources. Writing for games and for animation is obviously very similar, but I was more interested in games than in animation at this point. I wish it had been more balances, or even biased in favor of game-writing. That said, given the amount of information and resources in this book, that really was a minor disappointment.
"Write Your Way into Animation and Games" is set up like a textbook. At very rare times, it reads like a textbook, but it's still a lot more interesting than most of the textbooks I have/am dealing with now. If the format would, for some reason, put you off, don't worry about it. This isn't dry reading. The writing is professional but vibrant, and bursting with examples (which I definitely need.) I can't promise this will be a perfect read for any beginner. But, overall, this was a really great guide for me, and I know I'll be using it in the future.Write Your Way into Animation and Games: Create a Writing Career in Animation and Games Overview
Launch your career in writing for video games or animation with the best tips, tricks, and tutorials from the Focal press catalog--all at your fingertips. Let our award-winning writers and game developers show you how to generate ideas and create compelling storylines, concepts, and narratives for your next project.

Write Your Way Into Animation and Games provides invaluable information on getting into the game and animation industries. You will benefit from decades of insider experience about the fields of animation and games, with an emphasis on what you really need to know to start working as a writer.

Navigate the business aspects, gain unique skills, and develop the craft of writing specifically for aniamtion and games. Learn from the cream of the crop who have shared their knowledge and experience in these key Focal Press guides:

Digital Storytelling, Second Edition by Carolyn Handler Miller

Animation Writing and Development by Jean Ann Wright

Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games by Christy Marx

Story and Simulations for Serious Games by Nick Iuppa and Terry Borst

Writing for Multimedia and the Web, Third Edition by Timothy Garrand

* How to break in to the industry and have a career in writing for animation or videogames.

* How to fine tune your narrative, characters, world, and dialogue--with this comprehensive guide to writing.

* Companion Web site includes all of the key multimedia and resource components from the original Focal Press books.


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Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete Review

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Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete ReviewI just finished reading the book Total Engagement. It's rare that I read a book that has me wondering if the authors have caught a glimpse of an unexpected future, and that ten or twenty years from now people will be looking back and be saying: that was the book that spotted this crucial trend. Having lived in Silicon Valley for many years, I'm used to having that experience of being exposed to the future ahead of its time. This could be one of them.
The thesis is simple. Millions of people pay each month to participate in massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). I've tried them, and I have friends (and kids) that have been totally sucked into them. They punch a bunch of psychological tickets for humans: the game designers know what they're doing. The book discusses how this is done:
* an epic story line(we're saving the galaxy from the Crumlons)
* clear paths to advancement, with transparency about your skills and performance
* intensely meritocratic societies called guilds that work together in groups to accomplish major tasks
* strong social interactions with other people
* the ability to try, fail and try again rapidly, learning quickly
* the option to try on leadership roles
For many people, these games are where they come alive and truly experience their potential to solve problems, meet challenges and lead a team.
And then they go into the modern workplace, which is frequently as stultifying as these virtual worlds are thrilling. Fail!
Read and Reeves are convinced that at least some smart workplaces of the future are going to adapt some of the ways of the games to more fully engage their employees and become more effective as economic organizations. They don't have a magic formula for how to do this, but do invest a great deal of time analyzing what makes people inside these games tick and how those concepts transfer to the workplace.
Fascinating ideas, and well worth watching and thinking about.Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change the Way People Work and Businesses Compete OverviewEvery week, millions of people including many of your employees spend hours playing multi-player online games with a level of engagement they don t bring to work. These aren t just adolescent video games we re talking rich narrative quests with 3-D environments, cool avatars, and compelling goals and rewards. Imagine the value if you could transfer key ingredients of game design and the gamer excitement and focus that come with it to the office. What if your employees could solve customer problems, design new software, or configure better shipping routes working inside a game environment at work?This isn t just possible, say Byron Reeves and J. Leighton Read; it s inevitable. As global competition intensifies and employee productivity and engagement become more critical, the user experience provided by game technology offers a tantalizing solution for business. This is far more than a quaint metaphor for business and it s way beyond training tools. Implemented in the workplace, elements of games can solve a host of business problems with morale, communication, and alignment all while honing skills like data analysis, teamwork, recruitment, leadership, and more. Based on extensive hands-on research, case studies, and the authors entrepreneurial ventures, Total Engagement convincingly outlines how games will transform work, from repetitive call-center jobs to high-level teams who must collaborate with members dispersed around the globe. The authors show why you must begin building a game strategy now and offer practical guidelines for how to:--Select the game design features that can address your company s pain points --Use avatars to increase engagement and productivity--Employ virtual currencies to help employees set priorities, share resources, and meet goals--Implement participant-driven communication systems to facilitate team-building--Discover untapped leadership skills by shifting collaboration to game-like environments--Mitigate possible negative effects of game applications at work Authoritative and provocative, Total Engagement shows you how to become a player to reckon with as the gaming revolution transforms the workplace.

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The Official Guide to 3D GameStudio Review

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The Official Guide to 3D GameStudio ReviewI've owned 3D Game Studio for several years and hadn't seen an English language book, so I picked this up with some excitement. I've created art assets and done some level design in 3DGS but for the most part, I haven't tackled the programming in any significant way. I mention this since, after several years of waiting, I approached the book with some preconceptions about what it should be. Because of this it is not surprising it initially fell short of the 'vision' I had in my brain of a guru-like book of ultimate 3DGS wisdom. I've since taken a step back, considered what other software products 'official guides' were like and prepared what I hope is a balanced review. This is important since whether you love, or just like this book, is going to depend on what you expected out of it.
In my opinion this book is a good 'light' introduction to 3DGS and game programming concepts. In review of other official guides I find they range from minimalist, "hello world" type books -that seem to have been created only to satisfy customer expectation of a manual- to full fledged product bibles crammed with every detail. This book, like most, falls somewhere in-between. If you are brand new to 3DGS, or a student taking a first course on game programming, you'll find that the author has taken considerable effort to provide helpful details about game history, interface design, and playability issues; he also touches on game psychology, the importance of story and marketing. All of these are essential concepts.
The book is well written, easy to understand and adequately illustrated. The chapters on modeling using MED (the 3D Game Studio model editor), skinning and animating your model are satisfactory. The level design chapters are also appropriate and the included project walks you through successfully designing, creating and texturing a level.
The scripting chapters cover some of the basics of scripting, but this is the area that left me wanting for more. In fairness, after reviewing the official guide (for a much more expensive animation and design product I use at work) I find that the level of detail covered is similar.
It is likely that the author generalized or covered some of the programming material lightly because, at the time this book was written a very significant update to 3DGS was on the horizon (and has since been released). A7 is a substantial step forward for the game engine and suite of tools that comprise 3D Game Studio. A large part of that is the inclusion of the Lite-C programming language. This may explain the light c-script coverage since it is likely that c-script, even if in continues to be supported, will become much less important than the much more powerful Lite-C. Having said that, some c-script is covered and basic interactivity walked through in the relevant chapters. There is also some additional material and scripts on the disk.
So we are back to my first paragraph. Whether this book is for you or not depends on what your expectations and point of departure are. If you are a student (or a teacher) using 3D Game Studio as part of an introductory game development class then this book could be a good choice. The coding material would have to be supplemented, in my opinion, by Conitec's in depth written documentation, by guru George Pirvu's free and excellent AUM user magazine and by the extremely active and friendly official user forums.
This book, along with an instructor guided project, could also satisfy the course requirements for an introduction to game programming based on the 3DGS engine.
It's usefulness to people that already have some game dev experience is going to vary by individual and skill level, so look at the TOC, any other reviews and get feedback from the 3DGS forum members who have the book - then make you own determination.
I am generally satisfied with the book, with the sole exception of my desire for more substantial programming tutorials.
If the next version of the book is updated to include good material on Lite-C programming, or perhaps a second companion volume with more significant programming information is created, it would increase the value of the book immensely and likely drag in many of the thousands of current users who are eager to use Lite-C.
The Official Guide to 3D GameStudioThe Official Guide to 3D GameStudio OverviewIf you're a video game enthusiast, then you've probably thought more than once about creating your own games. Now you can develop your own 3D games using 3D GameStudio! The Official Guide to 3D GameStudio will help you develop the skills you need to create a variety of games, including first-person shooter and fantasy role-playing. Learn how to make a game from start to finish using the most readily found tools in the industry. You'll cover the fundamentals of character animation, level building, and programming various effects. You'll even get tips on the game industry as a whole, including how video games are made, what job opportunities exist, and how you can break into the industry. Whether you want to make games for your own enjoyment or to build your career portfolio, this all-in-one guide covers everything you need to know to make amazing 3D games!

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RPG Maker for Teens Review

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RPG Maker for Teens ReviewThis book which begins with a fairly extensive history and background of RPG games (beginning with simple classics such as Nethack), describes the skills and planning needed for their preparation; and covers in some detail the development of a teen's own game in the easy to use $60.00 programming environment RPG Maker VX (a 30 day trial is available over the Internet) and various free graphics tools used to supplement this development environment. The book carefully proceeds to give instruction in developing a role-playing game that could easily be understood by a teen or any other novice as well as developmental and historical outlines of this genre to all who might be interested. The biggest barrier to entry (or long-term use) is the cost of RPG Maker VX; but less powerful tools available for free might have limited the scope of games possible to create with this book.
--Ira LaefskyRPG Maker for Teens OverviewMake your RPG ideas come to life! RPG Maker For Teens shows teens and other beginners how to create their very own role-playing games, sword-and-sorcery quest games that feature turn-based combat, inventories full of unique weapons and armor, and fierce monsters prowling in dungeons. Using RPG Maker VX, a complete computer game application software, means that prior programming experience is not required. You'll follow easy-to-understand instructions and hands-on tutorials as you first build a sample game, and then your very own RPG as you work your way through the book. With RPG Maker For Teens, you'll learn everything you need to create fun, fantasy RPGs that you can play and share with others, including how to build a game world, invent characters, stage battles, put together quests, and edit and publish your finished game.
From the Author: 10 Quick Tips to Getting Started with RPG Maker
Create a new project and name it something distinct.Your first step in your new project is to declare the size of your map.Right-click on the map name in the panel list and select Map Properties; there you can change the dimensions of the map.
Draw your major landforms or interior structure.From the menu, select Mode > Map or press F5.Use the Pencil, Rectangle, Ellipse, or Flood Fill tools to place tiles on your map where the ground, floors, and/or walls would exist.
Using the Pencil tool, draw major tile elements, including impassible forests, grass, fences, buildings, and so on. Add more detailed tile elements as you go, including hangings, decorations, boxes, props, and more.
Create more maps that fit the outline of the game you want to make, including interior and exterior maps to be explored.
Now place Events.From the menu, select Mode > Events or press F6.Start by placing your player starting position.Then add transfer events from the current map to subsequent maps.Add non-player characters (NPCs) the player can dialogue with.You can add Door, Inn, and Treasure Chest quick events wherever you believe them necessary.
Decide where you want Enemies. If you want Enemies ambushing players all over your map, open Map Properties and set Troop Encounters.If you want to prompt encounters physically, place NPCs that instigate Battle Processing (Tab 3 of the Event Commands dialog box) on Player Touch.You can even set the NPC to run at the player by setting Autonomous Movement Type to "Approach."
Decide who you want to start in the player's party by editing the Database.From the menu, select Tools > Database or press F9 and navigate to the Actors tab.You can also change their abilities in the Skills tab and their professions in the Classes tab.
Edit or create custom Items, Weapons, or Armors in the Database.You can edit or create custom Enemies there, also.
Fine-tune the look of your game in the System and Terms tab of the Database.You can also edit or create custom graphics and import them into your game.Some graphics to consider modifying include player characters, NPCs, enemies, objects, map tiles, the title screen, and the Game Over screen.Likewise, you can edit or create custom sounds for your game.Study the music and sound effects listed in the System tab of the Database for audio you might want to adapt.
Test your game thoroughly.You should test after each new element you add to save you editing time later on.After you've tested your game thoroughly, have someone else test it for you.If your game passes the test, go to File > Compress Game Data to publish your game to an executable file.Distribute your game on the Internet or burn it to CD-ROM so that other people can play it.


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The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Strategies Review

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The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Strategies ReviewNot only is this an extremely interesting, readable account of textual strategies in video games (and associated media), but it's a model Kindle edition. The footnotes are hyperlinked and many of the cited web-pages in the notes can also be accessed directly from the Kindle. Even the index is hyperlinked. In the index, the original page numbers are retained but linked to the right locations in the Kindle edition. Somebody put a lot of attention into this and it makes this the most usable Kindle edition I have.The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Strategies OverviewThe Meaning of Video Games takes a textual studies approach to an increasingly important form of expression in today's culture. It begins by assuming that video games are meaningful-not just as sociological or economic or cultural evidence, but in their own right, as cultural expressions worthy of scholarly attention. In this way, this book makes a contribution to the study of video games, but it also aims to enrich textual studies.Early video game studies scholars were quick to point out that a game should never be reduced to merely its "story" or narrative content and they rightly insist on the importance of studying games as games. But here Steven E. Jones demonstrates that textual studies-which grows historically out of ancient questions of textual recension, multiple versions, production, reproduction, and reception-can fruitfully be applied to the study of video games. Citing specific examples such as Myst and Lost, Katamari Damacy, Halo, Façade, Nintendo's Wii, and Will Wright's Spore, the book explores the ways in which textual studies concepts-authorial intention, textual variability and performance, the paratext, publishing history and the social text-can shed light on video games as more than formal systems. It treats video games as cultural forms of expression that are received as they are played, out in the world, where their meanings get made.

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Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives Review

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Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives ReviewHoward's book is a refreshing departure from the usual focus of gaming texts, which give you the option of hands-on coding tutorials or lofty academic screeds. The middle-ground presented here is full of details from literary analysis to gameplay mechanics, and proves that Howard has actually PLAYED his share of games (the same cannot be said of many university gaming professors who are often squeezed in to existing literature or computer science programs). You won't see arguments about ludology vs narratology (i.e. gameplay vs story), or a deconstruction of gaming through a narrow lens like gender politics or whatever academic focus is in vogue at the moment. Rather, Quests provides a holistic view of how to use the vast cultural repositories of myth and folklore to craft better gaming experiences.
In short, Howard is an academic seeking to improve the quality of video games. That's a noble quest indeed!Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives OverviewThis unique take on quests, incorporating literary and digital theory, provides an excellent resource for game developers. Focused on both the theory and practice of the four main aspects of quests (spaces, objects, actors, and challenges), each theoretical section is followed by a practical section that contains exercises using the Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolset.

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Beyond Game Design: Nine Steps Towards Creating Better Videogames Review

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Beyond Game Design: Nine Steps Towards Creating Better Videogames ReviewIt's been a pleasure reading Beyond Game Design. I've found this text to be the rare successful combination of new information and old information explored in new ways. Each chapter feels complete in and of itself, with ideas from previous sections seamlessly supporting the next. For those working as designers or developers, or those who hope to work in design someday, this is a text worth reading.Beyond Game Design: Nine Steps Towards Creating Better Videogames OverviewAs a game designer, you are always looking for new ways to make a game unique and interesting. Beyond Game Design:Nine Steps Toward Creating Better Videogames shows you how to make better video games by challenging you to think outside of conventional game design wisdom.Written as a series of essays by industry experts on different components of game theory and design, the book tackles the full spectrum of issues related to how and why players enjoy certain games. You'll explore player emotions, patterns of play, gender and cultural diversity, accessibility issues, and various types of player skills. Providing practical, hands-on design tips and advice, as well as the theory and psychology behind how and why people play games, Beyond Game Design will help you tap into new player types and new ways to engage players as you discover how to make better, more successful videogames.
Editor Introduction
More Than Design
Beyond Game Design began with my dream of creating a book that would offer more than the nuts and bolts of game design. I wanted to offer something that would look deeper--into the psychology of play--and also look further into the issues relating to making games in our modern diverse cultures.
It was a great privilege to work with the authors of the chapters in this book--Richard Bartle, Noah Falstein, Katherine Isbister and Nicole Lazzaro are some of the biggest names in game design and the psychology of play, and Michelle Hinn, Joe Saulter and Sheri Graner Ray are unparalleled in their work in game diversity.
The book offers "Nine Steps" toward creating better videogames, but this nine-step program actually has two distinct aspects: understanding what games do and including a larger audience for games. Both steps are about making videogames for the new marketplace, one that is very different from the market for games just five years ago. It's a survival guide for companies who make games in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Here's a potted version of the nine step program that explains what it's all about:

Understand Emotions:Nicole Lazzaro is the leading researcher into game emotions, and explains why any game must be accessible and fun, and why "fun" means different things to different people. We don't all enjoy the same emotions of play; some players love failing a tough challenge and repeating it over and over again until they eventually win sweet victory, but for other players that's their idea of hell. Developers who understand the emotions of play are ready to compete in the new market for digital games; those who don't are living on borrowed time.
Understand Social Play:The explosion of Facebook and casual games has happened on the back of a newly recognised social aspect to play. Even traditional game forms, like First Person Shooters, are now dependent on social design for their success, as Modern Warfare amply demonstrates. Katherine Isbister describes the different social mechanisms available for game design, and why success in the wider market for games now requires designing for more than just a single player--even for single player games!
Understand Patterns of Play:I've been writing about Roger Caillois' patterns of play for many years, but with Beyond Game Design I took his work to a new level by tying each pattern to a specific neurobiological mechanism. The patterns of play are specific neurochemical responses that govern how and why games are fun--and understanding these is vital to commercially successful game design. This is your brain on games!
Understand the Limits of Theory:Richard Bartle's infamous "suits" model of Massively Multiplayer gamers was a seminal event in player studies, and remains widely read and used today. But a model can only take you so far. Bartle explains why every theory has limits and also why--despite those limits--it's still vital that commercial game design deploys theories.
Include Both Genders:Sheri Graner Ray has written extensively on gender distinctions in play, and makes a compelling argument that modern digital games that do not take into account issues of gender are leaving a lot of money on the table. Designing to include both genders means expanding the players who might enjoy your game--and that can make all the difference in commercial success.
Include Cultural Diversity:Joe Saulter is a jazz man turned game developer, and has a stark warning for players making games for a white male audience: that isn't the consumer base for digital entertainment anymore. If you're making games for just one ethnic group, you're already falling behind your competitors in the new marketplace for games.
Include Players with Accessibility Issues:When it comes to accessibility, it starts to look like diminishing returns... Is it really worth designing elements of games for players with specific disabilities? Michelle Hinn argues that many of the changes required to reach gamers with disabilities are trivial to implement, and that the number of affected players can be far larger than most developers and publishers usually think--especially when designing for a mass market audience of the kind Nintendo's Wii and DS target.
Include Players with Different Skills:My studies of the audience for games have thrown up a lot of interesting discoveries, but my most basic result still has the most to say to commercial game development: different players have different capabilities, and enjoy different things. If you are spending a lot of money developing a videogame you can't afford to be designing the game for a very small subset of the audience for games. The games that succeed support different ways of playing for different players.
Include Structures That Adapt to Player Needs:Finally, Noah Falstein brings it all together by exploring how games can be responsive to player needs. It's a cutting edge issue, and one that Noah has considerable experience with. By building games that work for many different players, you target a wider audience--and commercial success in the new market for digital games depends upon precisely that.

That's Beyond Game Design in a nutshell, but of course, the chapters of the book go into far more depth than I've described here. This book is an essential guide to creating commercial digital entertainment for the new audiences, the new marketplace and the new conditions in the videogames industry. Ignore it at your peril!

Chris BatemanEditor, Beyond Game Design


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21st Century Game Design (Charles River Media Game Development) Review

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21st Century Game Design (Charles River Media Game Development) Review21st Century Game Design's quiet brilliance lies in its logical, sensible treatment of game design in today's market. Things game designers may know on some intuitive level, but often have no conscious access to, no way of articulating, this book illuminates. Chris Bateman's DGD1 audience model allows designers to make more intelligent, informed decisions in the way they design.
Thorough implementation of the principles Bateman describes would help everyone: help publishers understand and support developers, help marketers know who to target, and most importantly of all, help gamers by making games that are made with their playstyles in mind. Not all gamers game alike, so as our industry grows and matures, understanding and identifying the different types of gamers is essential.
Of particular import for growth of our industry is appeal to women and the casual segment, considerations that Bateman shows need not be commensurate with alienating the hardcore segment. You don't need to "water down" a great game to broaden its potential audience; you just need to be aware of your audience and make design choices accordingly.
Bateman shows us that great game design is ultimately subjective; therefore an audience-driven approach to game design is essential to designing games in the 21st century. For any colleges and universities that have or are developing game design based cirriculum, for all industry professionals: here is an indispensable text.21st Century Game Design (Charles River Media Game Development) Overview21st Century Game Design is not just a book about game design. It's an answer to two important questions: who are we designing games for and how do we do it best? Written by industry pros, the book teaches designers how to design better games from a why perspective. All good designers know the fundamentals of how to design a game, but learning to design games that really satisfy your players takes more than technical skill. To do this successfully, you need to know your intended audience and understand their needs. Throughout the book you'll learn about defining and investigating player needs. A model of play styles is then presented that was developed by applying psychological metrics to survey data and case studies. This model identifi es some of the core themes in player needs as represented by four player types-- Conqueror, Manager, Wanderer, and Participant. In addition to discussing player needs, the book also explores how games can reach wider audiences by appealing to the interests of the core gaming community, and it considers the fundamental principles of game design. Methods such as interface design, structural elements, and game world abstractions are discussed in relation to the needs of the audience. The book does not attempt to present an absolute view of the craft of game design, but rather it demonstrates how an audience model can inform the design process and take the games industry forward at a time when it is facing a schism between the games that the audience would like to play, and the games the development community would like to make. Game designers, producers, marketing executives, and anyone who wishes to understand the relationship between a game and its audience will find much to learn from 21st Century Game Design.
Author's Reflections

Six Years On...
It's been six years since Richard Boon and I wrote 21st Century Game Design, and since then many of the claims we made which once were revolutionary are now commonplace. The idea that commercial game design requires models that help developers understand how and why people play games was still quite revolutionary in 2005. Richard Bartle's work had pointed in the general direction almost ten years earlier, but had been constrained to massively multiplayer games, and was more qualitative and less quantitative than the research described in this book.

The biggest sign of the success of our approach was the IEEE's creation of a Player Satisfaction Modelling Task Force in 2009, which I was appointed too in recognition for my work helping to establish the domain. Since then, I've been amazed at some of the incredible work that's been going on in player satisfaction, and happy to have contributed to the field's growth and development.

There are far more up-to-date player satisfaction models than the DGD1 described in this book, but there is still no better introduction to the idea of using player models to guide game design than 21st Century Game Design. What's more, the work Richard did in constructing a historical snapshot of game design in the context of this model gives a remarkable account of the development of videogames, one with a lot to teach about how games have been made, and how they could be made in the future.

But despite the most groundbreaking aspect of this book being its presentation of player satisfaction modelling--even before this term came into use!--what I look back upon most fondly in this title is our perspective on game design. The chapter on Foundations of Game Design remains an excellent introduction to the issues in practical game design and development (although we don't much use the terminology in this chapter any more) and the recognition of abstraction as part of the process of design remains relevant today.

There is a set of chapters here that will help any new game designer understand what it is they are trying to do, while an experienced game designer will find a lot to agree with, and some new ways of thinking about old problems. The discussion of Game Structures (Chapter 10) is as relevant today as it was when we wrote it--and terms like "playground worlds," "Breadcrumbing," and "Funnelling" have since been used by a great variety of game designers and game writers. It's satisfying to see our work being used by other people to help them make games.

If you are new to game design, 21st Century Game Design is an excellent primer in the practical aspects of commercial videogame design, and if you have more experience you'll find ideas in here that might expand your perspective on the discipline. There are a lot of great books on game design, but none are quite like this one.

Chris BatemanApril 2011


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Flash Multiplayer Virtual Worlds Review

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Flash Multiplayer Virtual Worlds ReviewThis is a fantastic book that will give you a solid foundation in building isometric Flash MMOs. It makes a great addition for those who already have Jobe Makar's ActionScript for Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds by covering many new topics.
I've been a roleplayer all my life, starting with D&D in the 80s, LARPing in the 90s and internet gaming in the 21st century. My favorite game of all time has to be Neverwinter Nights. I loved it because of the fabulous Aurora toolset it came with that let you create your own virtual world. I spent two months building a "mod" for others to play. And hundreds did. In the end, I got some cheers and jeers and made a few friends. But it always irked me that I would be unable to profit from my creation because the platform I built my game on belonged to someone else. I hoped someone would create an open software system that would allow me to use my own art and build my own worlds.
That brings us to this book. Despite the enormous popularity of Flash social games, there are very few sources that pull back the veil and show step-by-step the code underlying them. This book teaches you how to set up SmartFox Server and create small tiled worlds linked with portals. These zones can then be populated with NPCs who have their own walkpaths and inventories. Character interaction and questing are both covered using dialog trees and keywords. The book also delves into minigames, stores and numerous social features using APIs from Facebook and Twitter. It doesn't cover combat, character stats, gold, spells or crafting, but lets hope the author writes a sequel.
Don't fool yourself into thinking this is going to be easy though. This is high-level Actionscript that will test your coding talent. Also be aware that this book came out a few months before the release of SmartFoxServer 2 which uses Java for server-side scripting. That means the server-side code examples (there are two in the book) may need to be rewritten from ActionScript to Java to work with SFS2.
The book has a few weaknesses. The editors dropped the ball several times with grammar. While the book is well organized, it could have benefited from having chapter checklists. Getting the tutorials up and running is not exactly plug and play. But I have gotten all the way through with 90% of the features intact. The book uses FLAs for content so FlashDevelop users and Adobe Flash Builder 4 owners may need to download Flash Professional trials to use the demo tutorials.
Soon I hope to build my first virtual world. And unlike modding for a game, it will be mine to do with as I will. Thanks, Makzan! And please keep writing!Flash Multiplayer Virtual Worlds OverviewThis is a step-by-step, hands-on guide that is filled with examples and screenshots of building a multiplayer virtual world. The virtual world is built gradually; each chapter in the book sequentially develops the virtual world. The author explains the fundamentals with examples from existing virtual worlds such as Club Penguin, Mole, Dofus, and World of Warcraft. If you are a Flash or an ActionScript developer who wants to build powerful and immersive multiplayer games, this book is for you. This book assumes that you have some experience with ActionScript 3.0.

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The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games: How the Most Valuable Content Will be Created in the Age Beyond Gutenberg to Google (Pfeiffer ... Resources for Training and HR Professionals) Review

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The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games: How the Most Valuable Content Will be Created in the Age Beyond Gutenberg to Google (Pfeiffer ... Resources for Training and HR Professionals) ReviewFinally there is a "coffee table" resource book that creators of educational games and simulations can use to build mutual understanding and increase collaboration between all members of the development team and sponsors. Too often a professor or corporate client uses their powerful position to tell experienced and educated multi-media designers what elements and mechanics make a great simulation without intellectual discussion or the unpinning to support their assertions. Enter "The Complete Guide." Thank you, Clark Aldrich, for once again adding to our body of knowledge on this subject and thus improving the interactivity and educational effectiveness of this new way of "learning to be and do" as opposed to "learning to know" (simply forcing learners to absorb a lecture and memorize). Clark's work also stands out because he is brilliant, with a writing style that is witty and full of humor. His work can be fun to read (although I don't recommend trying to read this entire book). Clark is able to successfully accomplish this work of epic portions because he is not only a "student of simulations and games" but he actually practices what he preaches in the real world as a simulation designer/developer. [...]The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games: How the Most Valuable Content Will be Created in the Age Beyond Gutenberg to Google (Pfeiffer ... Resources for Training and HR Professionals) Overview"Ready to blow your mind? Spend 15 seconds reading Clark Aldrich's The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games. Witty, fast-paced, and non-linear -- it's Spock meets Alton Brown." -- Lynne Kenney, Psy.D., The Family Coach
This exciting work offers designers a new way to see the world, model it, and present it through simulations. A groundbreaking resource, it includes a wealth of new tools and terms and a corresponding style guide to help understand them. The author -- a globally recognized industry guru -- covers topics such as virtual experiences, games, simulations, educational simulations, social impact games, practiceware, game-based learning/digital game based learning, immersive learning, and serious games. This book is the first of its kind to present definitions of more than 600 simulation and game terms, concepts, and constructs.

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The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology Review

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The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology ReviewThis book collects a wide variety of critical thought on game design and the theory of games. As the subtitle states, it's a nice companion to "Rules of Play", but "Rules of Play" is by no means necessary to appreciate this book.
I like that it has a broad mix of theoretical articles from academics and more practical discussions from practicing game designers. It has most of the seminal articles I would expect to find in a summary of the field, as well as some I was not previously familiar with, but still enjoyed. As with any collection, not every piece was my cup of tea, but the overall quality was higher than I expected.
If you like games, this will make you think about how they work. It won't give you much day to day practical advice on making games, but sometimes it's good to think outside the practical. As a professional video game designer, I like things that make me think in new ways.The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology OverviewThe Game Design Reader is a one-of-a-kind collection on game design andcriticism, from classic scholarly essays to cutting-edge case studies. A companionwork to Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman's textbook Rules of Play: Game DesignFundamentals, The Game Design Reader is a classroom sourcebook, a reference forworking game developers, and a great read for game fans and players.Thirty-twoessays by game designers, game critics, game fans, philosophers, anthropologists,media theorists, and others consider fundamental questions: What are games and howare they designed? How do games interact with culture at large? What criticalapproaches can game designers take to create game stories, game spaces, gamecommunities, and new forms of play?Salen and Zimmerman have collected seminalwritings that span 50 years to offer a stunning array of perspectives. Gamejournalists express the rhythms of game play, sociologists tackle topics such asrole-playing in vast virtual worlds, players rant and rave, and game designersdescribe the sweat and tears of bringing a game to market. Each text acts as aspringboard for discussion, a potential class assignment, and a source ofinspiration. The book is organized around fourteen topics, from The PlayerExperience to The Game Design Process, from Games and Narrative to CulturalRepresentation. Each topic, introduced with a short essay by Salen and Zimmerman,covers ideas and research fundamental to the study of games, and points to relevanttexts within the Reader. Visual essays between book sections act as counterpoint tothe writings.Like Rules of Play, The Game Design Reader is an intelligent andplayful book. An invaluable resource for professionals and a unique introduction forthose new to the field, The Game Design Reader is essential reading for anyone whotakes games seriously.

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Challenges for Game Designers Review

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Challenges for Game Designers ReviewFinally! A book that talks about HOW to become a good game designer instead of merely addressing WHAT game design is. Most of the game design textbooks I've read taught me a bunch of academic buzz words (ludology, emergent game play, etc.), but they didn't leave much in the way of practical application. Brathwaite and Schreiber cap each chapter with a series of game design challenges that let the reader put their new knowledge to the test with good old pen and paper.
I found these challenges really helpful. In fact, they got me in the right mindset for taking design tests with game companies. After interviewing with one company, I was asked to take their design test. Thanks to Challenges, I was comfortable working under all sorts of real-world constraints, from genre-specific/technological limitations to IP restraints. The company liked my test and invited me to more interviews! So as an aspiring game designer, I extend my highest recommendation for this book to those looking to expand their design portfolio and prepare themselves for breaking into the game industry.
Challenges for Game Designers OverviewWelcome to a book written to challenge you, improve your brainstorming abilities, and sharpen your game design skills! Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers is filled with enjoyable, interesting, and challenging exercises to help you become a better video game designer, whether you are a professional or aspire to be. Each chapter covers a different topic important to game designers, and was taken from actual industry experience. After a brief overview of the topic, there are five challenges that each take less than two hours and allow you to apply the material, explore the topic, and expand your knowledge in that area. Each chapter also includes 10 "non-digital shorts" to further hone your skills. None of the challenges in the book require any programming or a computer, but many of the topics feature challenges that can be made into fully functioning games. The book is useful for professional designers, aspiring designers, and instructors who teach game design courses, and the challenges are great for both practice and homework assignments. The book can be worked through chapter by chapter, or you can skip around and do only the challenges that interest you. As with anything else, making great games takes practice and Challenges for Game Designers provides you with a collection of fun, thoughtprovoking, and of course, challenging activities that will help you hone vital skills and become the best game designer you can be.

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Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation (Morgan Kaufmann Game Design Books) Review

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Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation (Morgan Kaufmann Game Design Books) ReviewFirst of all, this is not about haptics (literal 'feel', as in force feedback or other simulated touch) though haptics are touched on (har). It's about tuning the feel of a specific kind of game - the sort where your avatar, seen or unseen, becomes a virtual extension of your real self. This requires a certain tight feedback loop of repeated player input and game response that's fast enough that it becomes to some degree chunked and unconscious. Games like Super Mario 64, Half-Life, Burnout, and Geometry Wars all qualify. Civ IV and Starcraft, even though they're great games, don't qualify - the input is too far removed.
It comes with a companion website, [...], and you are expected to follow along by downloading various example apps from the site at given points in the text and play with them. And they do add a huge amount to the book.
I'm slightly conflicted by this book - Swink does a good job of laying out exactly what makes a good game feel right, but it's a bit too chatty and repetitive, and there is a lot it 'it should do x' without as much indication of how to do x as I would have expected. If you tinker with the provided example apps much of it will come into focus, though from a tuning side if not implementation side.
I also didn't feel I learned a lot new till the end of the book, though it certainly helps to have it all laid out semi-rigorously as a checklist. On the other hand I've also played too many video games since Super Mario Bros where the designers obviously did NOT know this stuff, so I would highly recommend that anyone working in the game industry read this if you're not already Mark Cerny.
The real payoff for me came in the last several chapters where he analyzes several videogames in detail: Asteroids, Super Mario Bros, Bionic Commando, Super Mario 64, and Offroad Velociraptor Safari. And the chapter on experimental games to push the limits of the various game feel metrics was quite interesting as well.
There are charming hand illustrations throughout, and a constant stream of references to games (new and old) that you should have played at some point if you're a serious game author or player and which provide a shared reference. On the other hand, if you haven't, you might lose the point being made.
I'd give this 4.5 stars if I could - it's a good informative book, but for most of it I didn't feel utterly compelled to keep reading no matter what, and I need that for 5 stars. There are also some obvious errors an editor should have caught, though since the technical content is almost entirely on the website it doesn't hurt too much.
Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation (Morgan Kaufmann Game Design Books) Overview"Game Feel" exposes "feel" as a hidden language in game design that no one has fully articulated yet.The language could be compared to the building blocks of music (time signatures, chord progressions, verse) - no matter the instruments, style or time period - these building blocks come into play. Feel and sensation are similar building blocks where game design is concerned.They create the meta-sensation of involvement with a game. The understanding of how game designers create feel, and affect feel are only partially understood by most in the field and tends to be overlooked as a method or course of study, yet a game's feel is central to a game's success. This book brings the subject of feel to light by consolidating existing theories into a cohesive book. The book covers topics like the role of sound, ancillary indicators, the importance of metaphor, how people perceive things, and a brief history of feel in games.The associated web site contains a playset with ready-made tools to design feel in games, six key components to creating virtual sensation.There's a play palette too, so the desiger can first experience the importance of that component by altering variables and feeling the results.The playset allows the reader to experience each of the sensations described in the book, and then allows them to apply them to their own projects.Creating game feel without having to program, essentially.The final version of the playset will have enough flexibility that the reader will be able to use it as a companion to the exercises in the book, working through each one to create the feel described.*Demystifies this crucial, fundamental, and unexplored aspect of game design with case studies and fully interactive examples*Interviews with industry luminaries and in-depth examination of many classic games from a fresh angle*Website includes a fully playable interactive playset with ready-made tools for game designers

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The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses Review

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The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses ReviewJesse Schell, game design professor at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote an introductory book that was published in August, titled "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses." The back overleaf quotes Will Wright saying, "Easily the most comprehensive, practical book I've ever seen on game design." I will try to briefly state why I agree and offer details to help you decide if this book is for you.
Each chapter of the book adds a node to a network of relationships between the designer, the game, and the player. Throughout, Schell boxes 100 tips, with questions that induce a novel perspective on the design. He calls these lenses. I applaud the volume of diverse traditions, such as: psychology, storytelling, engineering, business, and management. They are so diverse as to change not only perspective, but also target. "The Lens of the Puzzle" looks at the mechanisms of the game; whereas, "The Lens of the Team" looks at the developers of the game. This is an eclectic approach that distills many abstract tips on what to consider when designing. Some experience and diligence with most of the 100 lenses would almost guarantee the reader is a competent designer.
Most lenses seemed crystal clear and provoked thoughts. Oftentimes, Schell deploys the wheels that others have invented. Many lenses refer to prior literature, such as Barry Boehm's spiral model of development (82), Scott Kim's thoughts on puzzles (209).
Furthermore, Schell gives us some original gems on the psychology of games that expanded my mind. He touches on the tactile aesthetics of the Rubik's cube (213), the learning curve of a jigsaw puzzle (215). He has some tips on personal communication that, upon reflection, exposed mistakes I have made, and would be more likely to continue to make had I not read Schell's advice. For example, in "Coping with Bad Suggestions," rather than agree or disagree, he advises to "understand why the client is making the suggestion" (417). He gives similarly important advice for playtesting (389).
Perhaps the inevitable danger of writing a comprehensive book is that one's own rough facets become apparent when placed side-by-side with one's brilliance. In a few spots, I would like to see wheels being reused rather than reinvented, such as mathematical graphs (132), epistemics of players (139), military tactics (141), risk and return (181), interface affordances (212), models of human-computer interaction (225), and plotting interest (247). I don't disagree with what Schell wrote there, but would rather dive deeper by leveraging prior literature (as he did in other lenses).
The book is well-presented with modest illustrations and easy to read from beginning to end. On an editorial note, although I affirm Schell's eclectic approach to game design, after reading the book, I wish it were easier to find the information I wanted to refer to. The table of lenses at the front of the book was not enough for me. The lens titles are not always evocative and distinct.
To summarize:
* What you will find in this book: informal habits of a professional game designer.
* What you will not find in this book: details or examples of designs and their implementation.
Game Developer magazine nominated The Art of Game Design for the Book of the Year. It got my vote.The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses OverviewAnyone can master the fundamentals of game design - no technological expertise is necessary. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality videogames. Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses - one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer - and will understand how to do it.* Jesse Schell is a highly recognizable name within the game industry - he is the former chair of the International Game Developer's Association, and has designed many successful games, including Disney's award-winning Toontown Online. * The book's design methodology was developed at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, co-founded by Dr. Randy Pausch of "Last Lecture" fame. * 100 'lenses' are scattered throughout the book. These are boxed sets of questions, each a different way of seeing a game that will inspire the creative process.* 500 pages of detailed, practical instruction on creating world-class games that will be played again and again.* Winner of Game Developer's 2008 Front Line Award in the book category

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The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game Review

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The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game ReviewWhen I first heard about what Lee Sheldon was doing in his college course, by way of a viewing of Jesse Schell's DICE Convention talk (distributed by TED), I looked for more info. Using XP to grade? How would this work? My gut told me that it was worth investigating further, so I poked around...and discovered that this textbook was about to be published, a scant week from my investigation. TIMING!
Having placed my order for a copy, I scoured TED for relevant talks (and found several), and began some cursory plans for my classroom.
When the book arrived, I put all planning on hold and read it. It proved to be a quick read, in part, no doubt, because the author had been/is a writer (for TV shows, notably Star Trek: The Next Generation; and for some of the best computer games out there). He knew how to keep the info engaging. One small example: Instead of chapters, the book has levels.
The Multiplayer Classroom offers a sturdy skeleton for a rethinking of your classroom content delivery. It shares the youthful history of using a gaming overlay in education step by step, as it evolved, and unashamedly allows for the criticisms of such restructuring to be voiced as well as the praises. (The latter easily overshadow the former.) The book explains the mechanisms games use to engage and entertain the player, and suggests how to use those same mechanisms to facilitate learning. And, it shares concrete examples from real-life applications.
Now, I will tell you straight up: There is content in this book that feels like filler. There are several tentative case-studies, reports of initial experiments that teachers at various levels in various disciplines have attempted. Not all of these have solid, decisive conclusions to share.
But why would we expect otherwise? We are talking about a true paradigm shift here: An entirely new way to cast--and consider--the content in your classroom. Very few educators have even heard about this possibility. Even fewer have tried implementing it.
I used to tell students when they entered my classroom for the first time that they had a clean slate. The implication? An "A+" was there, waiting for them to maintain. Now, I plan to go into this coming school year with the opening line Lee used: "Good morning. Welcome. Everyone in this class is going to receive an F." To be followed, after a pause, with, "Unless...."
More importantly, I am now working to intertwine my content (in my case middle school English) with a compelling story line, with surprises and rewards for the player (ie, students) along the way.
And I'm changing the terminology that will be used in the classroom. Why "write a free-choice paper" when you can "adventure"? Why "do a project" when you can "go on a quest"? And who'd prefer to "take a quiz" when they might "be inspected by an official from another province" or "take a test" when they might "tame a beast"? Words are amazingly powerful, and the connotations that certain terms bring can instantaneously engage or disconnect a reader/listener. In my class, students will unlock achievements, discover treasures, and battle illiteracy....
There is no change in content. My curriculum maps are still my guide. State-mandated standards are intact. What's changing? My delivery. The way I FRAME the content.
That's what this book is all about. It's cutting edge, and largely untested. But it's based in logic, in common sense. Its premise, in a nutshell: Using, in a classroom, those strategies which make games compelling...will make the classroom experience more compelling.
I'm creating my plans for the coming school year with both a confidence and an excitement I have not felt in years.The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game Overview

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