Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games (Gama Network Series)
Chapter 1: The Role of the Game Designer
- Exercise 1.1: Become a Tester
- Exercise 1.2: D.O.A.
- Exercise 1.3: Your Life as a Game
- Exercise 1.4: Your Childhood
Chapter 2: The Structure of Games
- Exercise 2.1: Think of a Game
- Exercise 2.2: Players
- Exercise 2.3: Objectives
- Exercise 2.4: Rules
- Exercise 2.5: Conflict
- Exercise 2.6: Challenge
- Exercise 2.7: Premise
- Exercise 2.8: Story
- Exercise 2.9: Applying What You've Learned
Chapter 3: Working with Formal Elements
- Exercise 3.1: Gin Rummy
- Exercise 3.2: Three-Player Tic-tac-toe
- Exercise 3.4: Objectives
- Exercise 3.5: Procedures for Blackjack
- Exercise 3.6: Rules Restricting Actions
- Exercise 3.7: Rules for Blackjack
- Exercise 3.8: Utility and Scarcity
- Exercise 3.9: Resource Types
- Exercise 3.10: Conflict
- Exercise 3.11: Boundaries
- Exercise 3.12: Outcome
- Exercise 3.13: Revise Rules and Procedures
Chapter 4: Working with Dramatic Elements
- Exercise 4.1: Making Checkers Dramatic
- Exercise 4.2: Dramatic Games
- Exercise 4.3: Skills
- Exercise 4.4: Goals and Feedback
- Exercise 4.5: Player Types
- Exercise 4.6: Premise
- Exercise 4.7: Game Characters
- Exercise 4.8: Story
- Exercise 4.9: Plotting a Story, Part 1
- Exercise 4.10: Plotting a Story, Part 2
- Exercise 4.11: Plotting a Story, Part 3
Chapter 5: Working with System Dynamics
- Exercise 5.1: Objects and Properties
- Exercise 5.2: Behaviors
- Exercise 5.3: Relationships
- Exercise 5.4: System Dynamics
- Exercise 5.6: Bartering Systems
- Exercise 5.7: Hidden Information
- Exercise 5.8: Information Structures
- Exercise 5.9: Control
Chapter 6: Conceptualization
- Exercise 6.1: Your Inspiration List
- Exercise 6.2: Idea Fountain
- Exercise 6.3: Organizing Your Brain
- Exercise 6.4: Your Ideabase
- Exercise 6.5: Growing an Idea Tree
- Exercise 6.6: Research
- Exercise 6.7: Do It
- Exercise 6.8: Describe Your Game
- Exercise 6.9: Write a Treatment
Chapter 7: Prototyping
- Exercise 7.1: Modifying Your Prototype
- Exercise 7.2: Movement and Shooting
- Exercise 7.3: Build it Yourself
- Exercise 7.4: Features
- Exercise 7.5: Working Backwards
- Exercise 7.6: Mapping a Level
- Exercise 7.7: Designing Your Own Level
- Exercise 7.8: Understanding Core Gameplay
- Exercise 7.9: Prototype Your Own Game
Chapter 8: Playtesting
- Exercise 8.1: Test it Yourself
- Exercise 8.2: Test with Confidants
- Exercise 8.3: Recruiting Playtesters
- Exercise 8.4: Writing a Playtest Script
- Exercise 8.5: Playtesting Your Game
- Exercise 8.6: The Play Matrix
- Exercise 8.7: Plotting Your Favorite Games
- Exercise 8.8: Gathering Data
- Exercise 8.9: Test Control Situations
Chapter 9: Functionality, Completeness, and Balance
- Exercise 9.1: Testing for Functionality
- Exercise 9.2: Testing for Completeness
- Exercise 9.3: Spawn Camping
- Exercise 9.4: Loopholes
- Exercise 9.5: Game Variables
- Exercise 9.6: Reinforcing Relationships
- Exercise 9.7: Dominant Strategy
- Exercise 9.8: Symmetrical versus Asymmetrical Games
- Exercise 9.9: Asymmetrical Objectives
- Exercise 9.10: Skill Levels
- Exercise 9.11: Purity of Purpose
- Exercise 9.12: Spreadsheets
Chapter 10: Fun and Accessibility
- Exercise 10.1: Challenge and Play
- Exercise 11.2: Decision Types
- Exercise 10.3: Dilemmas
- Exercise 10.4: Rewards
- Exercise 10.5: Surprise
- Exercise 10.6: Progress
- Exercise 10.7: Endings
- Exercise 10.8: Micromanagement
- Exercise 10.9: Stagnation
- Exercise 10.10: Usability Testing
Chapter 11: Controls and Interfaces
- Exercise 11.1: Original Game Controls
- Exercise 11.2: Control Design
- Exercise 11.3: Viewpoint
- Exercise 11.4: Metaphors
- Exercise 11.5: Natural Mapping
- Exercise 11.6: Grouping
- Exercise 11.7: Feedback in Your Game
- Exercise 11.8: Wireframes
Chapter 12: Team Structures
- Exercise 12.1: Recruit a Team
- Exercise 12.2: Marketing
- Exercise 12.3: Usability Experience
Chapter 13: Stages of Development
- Exercise 13.1: Goals
- Exercise 13.2: Deliverables
- Exercise 13.3: Schedule
- Exercise 13.4: Budget
- Exercise 13.5: Revise
Chapter 14: The Design Document
- Exercise 14.1: Researching Design Documents
- Exercise 14.2: Flowchart and Wireframes
- Exercise 14.3: Table of Contents
- Exercise 14.4: Fleshing Out Your Design Document
Chapter 15: Understanding the Game Industry
- Exercise 15.1: Your Game's Genre
- Exercise 15.2: The Right Publisher
Chapter 16: Selling Yourself and Your Ideas to the Game Industry
- Exercise 16.1: Networking
- Exercise 16.2: Follow-Up Letter
- Exercise 16.3: Resume
- Exercise 16.4: Internship
- Exercise 16.5: Preparing Your Submission Materials
- Exercise 16.6: Pitching