Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games (Gama Network Series) [Paperback]

Tracy Fullerton (Author), Chris Swain (Author), Steven Hoffman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2004 | ISBN-10: 1578202221 | ISBN-13: 978-1578202225

As experienced teachers of novice game designers, the authors have discovered patterns in the way that students grasp game design - the mistakes they make as well as the methods to help them to create better games.

Each exercise requires no background in programming or artwork, releasing beginning designers from the intricacies of electronic game production and allowing them to learn what works and what doesn't work in a game system. Additionally, these exercises teach important skills in system design: the processes of prototyping, playtesting, and redesigning.

Teaches the fundamentals of game design through the study of classic systems

Exercises will strengthen your understanding of how game elements work together

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tracy Fullerton, M.F.A., is a game designer, educator and writer with fifteen years of professional experience. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Interactive Media Division of the USC School of Cinema-Television where she serves as Co-Director of the Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab. Recent credits include faculty advisor for the award-winning student game Cloud, and game designer for The Night Journey a unique game/art project with media artist Bill Viola. Prior to joining the USC faculty, she was president and founder of the interactive television game developer, Spiderdance, Inc. Spiderdance's games included NBC's Weakest Link, MTV's webRIOT, The WB's No Boundaries, History Channel's History IQ, Sony Game Show Network's Inquizition and TBS's Cyber Bond. Before starting Spiderdance, Tracy was a founding member of the New York design firm R/GA Interactive. As a producer and creative director she created games and interactive products for clients including Sony, Intel, Microsoft, AdAge, Ticketmaster, Compaq, and Warner Bros. among many others.

The authors have designed dozens of games for Microsoft, Sony, Sega, Disney, Activision, Acclaim, Spectrum Holobyte, and others. Tracy Fullerton and Chris Swain teach game design at the USC School of Cinema-Television. Steve Hoffman founded game developer Lavamind, where he created simulation hits Gazillionaire and Zapitalism. In addition he was an executive with Sega in Japan, and CEO of developer, Spiderdance. Collectively, their work has received dozens of honors including Best Family/Board Game from the AIAS, IBC?s Nombre D?Or, and PC Computing?s Strategy Game of the Year

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press (February 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578202221
• ISBN-13: 978-1578202225
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #389,264 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not programming, Not Graphics, Overall Game Design, April 13, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games (Gama Network Series) (Paperback)

Few people realize just how big a business digital gaming has become. Think of it this way: It's bigger than the domestic box office of the film industry. The amount of time spent playing games by young people now exceeds everything but television in time spent on entertainment. The main factor driving the development of the new extremely powerful computers is gaming, slower machines are capable of handling almost all office tasks.

The authors of this book have a great deal of experience in both designing games and teaching how to design games. This has given them an understanding of how beginning designers grasp the structured elements of games, common traps they fall into, and certain developmental exercises that help the student learn to make better games.

Note that this is not a programming manual, nor is it a graphics design manual. It is on game design. What are the characteristics that make a game, how can you prototype and play test the game without a horrendous programming expense, and finally some input on the game industry and how to decide on how you might like to be employeed in that industry.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Practical Book of Game Design, July 18, 2007

By 

Frederick E. Watt IV "Mr. Papisito" (Redmond, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games (Gama Network Series) (Paperback)

I consider this an excellent book on game design. As an amatuer board game and basic computer game designer, I found a lot of the material extremely useful in the *process* of coming up with a game from start to finish.

The chapter on prototyping did a great job in showing how to go ahead and create a prototype from a game idea, while keeping it simple and concentrating on the "core gameplay mechanism."

The chapter on "Playtesting" and "Functionality, Completeness, and Balance" builds on the prototype chapter by emphasizing the iterative nature of design where one go aheads and evaluates, tries new things, identify problems and keep evolving.

The next chapter following is maybe the most important chapter that discusses whether you game is fun, goes in to some theory of what makes a game fun, and relates various techniques of improving player's choices so as to make the game fun.

This is a great book that gives you the necessary tools to go ahead and be able to at the very least create a viable prototype of a game that is possibly fun and playable.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good book for educational use, June 3, 2006

By 

W. Baars "Wouter Baars" (Netherlands) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games (Gama Network Series) (Paperback)

This might be a good book for teachers looking for material in their classes gamedesign or gamedevelopment. It may also be a good book for selfstudy, if you have the discipline to do the exercises. You need to have played a lot of the classic videogames though, otherwise you might not be able to do the exercises, which are mostly about thinking about gamedesigns and making little designs or design alterations on existing games.