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Game Designer's Playlist, The: Innovative Games Every Game Designer Needs to Play
- By Zack Hiwiller
- Published Aug 14, 2018 by Addison-Wesley Professional. Part of the Game Design series.
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Description
- Copyright 2019
- Dimensions: 7" x 9"
- Pages: 240
- Edition: 1st
- eBook
- ISBN-10: 0-13-487333-5
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-487333-6
Game Designers: Learn from the Masters!
In The Game Designers Playlist, top game design instructor Zack Hiwiller introduces more than 70 remarkable games, revealing how they work, why they’re great, and how to apply their breakthrough techniques in your own games.
Ranging from Go to Texas Hold’em and Magic: The Gathering to Dishonored 2, Hiwiller teaches indispensable lessons about game decision-making, playability, narrative, mechanics, chance, winning, originality, cheats, and a whole lot more. He gleans powerful insights from virtually every type of game: console, mobile, PC, board, card, and beyond.
Every game is presented in full color, with a single purpose: to show you what makes it exceptional, so you can create legendary games of your own.
- Discover how game designers use randomness and luck
- Make the most of narrative and the narrator’s role
- Place the game challenge front and center
- Optimize game mechanics, and place mechanics in a broader context
- Uncover deep dynamic play in games with the simplest rules
- Find better ways to teach players how to play
- See what games can teach about the process of game design
- Build games with unusual input/output modalities
- Explore winning, losing, and game dynamics beyond “one-vs.-all”
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Sample Content
Table of Contents
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xxi
About the Author xxii
Chapter 1: From Simplicity, The Universe 1
A Universe, Conquered 2
The Simplicity and Complexity of Go 3
More Than Thinking, Learning 6
Play to Win 9
Summary 11
Chapter 2: Randomness and Cholesterol 13
A Short History of Randomness 14
Pass the Chips 14
Mate 15
Stranger and Stranger Danger 18
Goofspiel 19
Agency and Uncertainty 21
Types of Uncertainty in Mechanics 23
Randomness and Perceptions of Fairness 26
Summary 28
Chapter 3: Pushing One’s Luck 31
Press Your Luck or Press Your Skill? 32
No Whammy 34
It’s in the Name 35
Greed and Risk 38
Let Them Eat Cake 39
Equity 43
Summary 44
Chapter 4: Piecemeal Perspectives 45
Interactive Fictions 46
Actors and Interactions 47
Armchair Jurors 48
Her Story 49
Orwell 52
The Eye Above 53
Summary 54
Chapter 5: Permanence 57
Interactive Fictions 58
Fiero 58
Memories of Places That Have Never Been 62
Summary 65
Chapter 6: Mechanics as Message 67
Where Meaning Exists 68
Marriage of Theme and Interaction 70
September 12th 71
Passage 72
Dissonance 73
Bioshock and Dissonance 74
Systems as Politics 76
Parable of the Polygons 78
Summary 82
Chapter 7: Requiem for a Pewter Shoe 85
Pieces and Meaning 86
The Buddha Nature 86
Nomic 89
Eying Basic Grammars 90
Summary 91
Chapter 8: The Second Chance Phenomenon 93
Flexibility 94
Hearthstone 96
Dominion 97
7 Wonders 98
Summary 99
Chapter 9: Challenging Complexity 101
Retracing Your Steps 102
Drop7 103
Triple Town 107
Game of Life 109
Pair Solitaire 111
Love Letter 114
Summary 115
Chapter 10: Learning to Walk 117
The Price of Entry 118
Building a Structure 119
Thinking with Portals 121
Summary 124
Chapter 11: Mechanics in Milieu 127
Taste and Distaste 128
Agency and Dilemma 130
Depression Quest and Indirect Representation 131
Papers, Please 133
A Mind Forever Voyaging 135
One Vision 136
Summary 138
Chapter 12: The Clone Wars 141
Here Comes the Flood 142
What If Clones Are Necessary First Steps? 143
How Mechanically Different Can a Clone Be? 144
Summary of Questions 146
Chapter 13: The Discipline of Game Design 149
The Worst Game Design Question 150
So Then What Is a Game Designer? 151
Accidental Game Design 154
Write What You Love … or Not? 156
Why Rewards? 158
Summary 159
Chapter 14: Winning and Losing 163
Playing Together 164
Communication 164
Diplomacy 167
Informal Rules 168
Summary 169
Chapter 15: Inputs and Outputs 171
Mimicry 172
Jousting 173
Life as Game Inputs 174
Waiting Is the Hardest Part 176
Verbal Communication as Game Inputs 178
Summary 179
Chapter 16: Whose Stories? 183
Negotiated Storytelling 184
Automated Dungeon Masters 186
Symbolic Worlds 187
Who Are You? 188
Summary 189
Chapter 17: Cheat Codes 191
On Cheating 192
Katamari Damacy 194
Terry Cavanaugh 195
Dream Quest 196
Desert Golfing 196
Summary 197
Chapter 18: Conclusion and Final Playlist 199
Mindset 200
Final Playlist, Divided by Platform 200
Mobile 201
Consoles 201
PC 201
Analog 203
Index 205
Updates
Errata
We've made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this book and its companion content. Any errors that have been confirmed since this book was published can be downloaded below.
Download the errata (115 KB .pdf)