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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 ...
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 ...
When making games for kids, it’s tempting to simply wing-it on the design. We were all children once, right? The reality is that adults are far removed from the cognitive changes and the motor skill challenges that are the hallmark of the developing child. Designing Games for Children, helps you understand these developmental needs of children and how to effectively apply them to games. Whether you’re a seasoned game designer, a children's media professional, or an instructor teaching the next generation of game designers, Designing Games for Children is the first book dedicated to service the specific needs of children's game designers. This is a hands-on manual of child psychology as i...
ZZT is an exploration of a submerged continent, a personal history of the shareware movement, ascii art, messy teen identity struggle, cybersex, transition, outsider art, the thousand deaths of Barney the Dinosaur, and what happens when a ten-year-old gets her hands on a programming language she can understand.
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Game designers spend their lives solving extraordinary problems and facing mind-bending paradoxes. It’s their job to make a meticulous plan for “spontaneous fun” players will want to experience over and over again. Pressure is heaped on with demands for innovation and blockbuster status. So designers find themselves facing an abyss of problems, pressure, and possibilities, armed only with their brains and an assortment of design principles they picked up over years of experience. For the first time, 100 Principles of Game Design gathers some of the best of these big ideas into one toolkit. Seasoned designers will be glad they don’t have to hold it all in their heads anymore, and begi...
The Bogleheads are back-with retirement planning advice for those who need it! Whatever your current financial situation, you must continue to strive for a viable retirement plan by finding the most effective ways to save, the best accounts to save in, and the right amount to save, as well as understanding how to insure against setbacks and handle the uncertainties of a shaky economy. Fortunately, the Bogleheads, a group of like-minded individual investors who follow the general investment and business beliefs of John C. Bogle, are here to help. Filled with valuable advice on a wide range of retirement planning issues, including some pearls of wisdom from Bogle himself, The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning has everything you need to succeed at this endeavor. Explains the different types of savings accounts and retirement plans Offers insights on managing and funding your retirement accounts Details efficient withdrawal strategies that could help you maintain a comfortable retirement lifestyle Addresses essential estate planning and gifting issues With The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning, you'll discover exactly what it takes to secure your financial future, today.
Learn the mechanics that take your game from an idea to a playable product. Do you aspire to be a game designer but aren’t sure where to begin? Learning Video Game Design on the Tabletop guides you through your initial attempts to design game mechanics. It goes beyond simple description and definition to explore in detail the issues that designers grapple with for every game they create. Learning to design tabletop games builds a solid foundation for game designers and provides methods that can be applied towards creating paper prototypes of computer-targeted games. Presented in a step-by-step format, this book helps the reader understand how the game design skills that are acquired throug...
As games grow more complex and gamers' expectations soar, the discipline of game systems design becomes ever more important. Game systems designers plan a game's rules and balance, its characters' attributes, most of its data, and how its AI, weapons, and objects work and interact. Introduction to Game Systems Design is the first complete beginner's guide to this crucial discipline. Writing for all aspiring game professionals, even those with absolutely no experience, leading game designer and instructor Dax Gazaway presents a step-by-step, hands-on approach to designing game systems with industry-standard tools. Drawing on his experience building AAA-level game systems (including games in t...