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This eBook includes the following formats, accessible from your Account page after purchase:
EPUB The open industry format known for its reflowable content and usability on supported mobile devices.
PDF The popular standard, used most often with the free Acrobat® Reader® software.
This eBook requires no passwords or activation to read. We customize your eBook by discreetly watermarking it with your name, making it uniquely yours.
• Developed from the ground up to address the key needs of today's game design students
• Addresses the needs of both analog and digital game designers, cultivating evergreen knowledge over transient tips and tricks
• Covers prototyping, playtesting, game mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics, tools, and much more
• Includes a deeper focus on cognitive biases and human decision-making: player behavior issues that are crucial to effective game design but ignored by most texts
• Shows how to use simulation tools to decode the magic of game balance and quantitative design
Game designers today are expected to have an arsenal of multi-disciplinary skills at their disposal in the fields of art and design, computer programming, psychology, economics, composition, education, mythology—and the list goes on. How do you distill a vast universe down to a few salient points?
Players Making Decisions brings together the wide range of topics that are most often taught in modern game design courses and focuses on the core concepts that will be useful for students for years to come. A common theme to many of these concepts is the art and craft of creating games in which players are engaged by making meaningful decisions. It is the decision to move right or left, to pass versus shoot, or to develop one’s own strategy that makes the game enjoyable to the player. As a game designer, you are never entirely certain of who your audience will be, but you can enter their world and offer a state of focus and concentration on a task that is intrinsically rewarding.
This detailed and easy-to-follow guide to game design is for both digital and analog game designers alike and some of its features include:
Download Chapter 4 Starting Practices
Introduction
Part I. Starting
Part II. Prototyping and Playtesting
Part III. Meaningful Decisions
Part IV. Game Elements
Part V. Game Theory and Rational Decision Making
Part VI. Actual Human Behavior and Games
Part VII. Game Design Tools
Part VIII. The Game Design Business
Conclusion