Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C#

Auteur

Jeremy Gibson Bond is a Professor of Practice, teaching game design and development in the Media and Information Department at Michigan State University (http://gamedev.msu.edu), which has been ranked a top-ten game design program for the last several years. Since 2013, he has served the IndieCade independent game festival and conference as the Chair of Education and Advancement, where he co-chairs the IndieXchange summit each year. In 2013, Jeremy founded the company ExNinja Interactive, through which he develops his independent game projects. Jeremy has also spoken several times at the Game Developers Conference. Prior to joining the faculty at Michigan State, Jeremy taught for three years as a Lecturer in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, where he taught game design and software development. From 2009 to 2013, Jeremy was an Assistant Professor of Practice teaching game design for the Interactive Media and Games Division of the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, which was named the number one game design school in North America throughout his tenure there. Jeremy earned a Master of Entertainment Technology degree from Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center in 2007 and a Bachelor of Science degree in Radio, Television, and Film from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999. He started his career as a programmer and prototyper for companies such as Human Code and frog design; has also taught classes for Great Northern Way Campus (in Vancouver, BC), Texas State University, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Austin Community College, and the University of Texas at Austin; and has worked for Walt Disney Imagineering, Maxis, and Electronic Arts/Pogo.com, among others. While in graduate school, his team created the online game Skyrates, which won the Silver Gleemax Award for Strategic Gaming at the 2008 Independent Games Festival. Jeremy also apparently has the distinction of being the first person to ever teach game design in Costa Rica.

Texte du rabat

Award-winning game designer and professor Jeremy Gibson Bond has spent the last decade teaching game design and working as an independent game developer. Over the years, his most successful students have always been those who effectively combined game design theory, concrete rapid-prototyping practices, and programming skills.

Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development is the first time that all three of these disciplines have been brought together into a single book. It is a distillation of everything that Gibson has learned teaching hundreds of game designers and developers in his years at the #1 university games program in North America. It fully integrates the disciplines of game design and computer programming and helps students master the crucial practice of iterative prototyping using Unity. As the top game engine for cross-platform game development, Unity allows readers to write a game once and deliver it to everything from Windows, OS X, and Linux applications to webpages and all of the most popular mobile platforms.

Contenu

Foreword by Richard Lemarchand xxiii Preface xxvii PART I: GAME DESIGN AND PAPER PROTOTYPING 1 Chapter 1 Thinking Like a Designer 3 You Are a Game Designer 4 Bartok: A Game Exercise 4 The Definition of Game 10 Summary 17 Chapter 2 Game Analysis Frameworks 19 Common Frameworks for Ludology 20 MDA: Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics 20 Formal, Dramatic, and Dynamic Elements 24 The Elemental Tetrad 28 Summary 29 Chapter 3 The Layered Tetrad 31 The Inscribed Layer 32 The Dynamic Layer 33 The Cultural Layer 34 The Responsibility of the Designer 36 Summary 37 Chapter 4 The Inscribed Layer 39 Inscribed Mechanics 40 Inscribed Aesthetics 47 Inscribed Narrative 49 Inscribed Technology 59 Summary 60 Chapter 5 The Dynamic Layer 61 The Role of the Player 62 Emergence 63 Dynamic Mechanics 64 Dynamic Aesthetics 70 Dynamic Narrative 75 Dynamic Technology 78 Summary 78 Chapter 6 The Cultural Layer 79 Beyond Play 80 Cultural Mechanics 81 Cultural Aesthetics 82 Cultural Narrative 83 Cultural Technology 84 Authorized Transmedia Are Not Part of the Cultural Layer 85 The Cultural Impact of a Game 86 Summary 89 Chapter 7 Acting Like a Designer 91 Iterative Design 92 Innovation 98 Brainstorming and Ideation 99 Changing Your Mind 103 Scoping 105 Summary 106 Chapter 8 Design Goals 107 Design Goals: An Incomplete List 108 Designer-Centric Goals 108 Player-Centric Goals 111 Summary 127 Chapter 9 Paper Prototyping 129 The Benefits of Paper Prototypes 130 Paper Prototyping Tools 131 Paper Prototyping for Interfaces 133 An Example Paper Prototype 134 Best Uses for Paper Prototyping 139 Poor Uses for Paper Prototyping 140 Summary 140 Chapter 10 Game Testing 143 Why Playtest? 144 Being a Great Playtester Yourself 144 The Circles of Playtesters 145 Methods of Playtesting 148 Other Important Types of Testing 156 Summary 157 Chapter 11 Math and Game Balance 159 The Meaning of Game Balance 160 The Importance of Spreadsheets 160 The Choice of Google Sheets for This Book 161 Examining Dice Probability with Sheets 162 The Math of Probability 174 Randomizer Technologies in Paper Games 178 Weighted Distributions 182 Permutations 184 Using Sheets to Balance Weapons 186 Positive and Negative Feedback 194 Summary 194 Chapter 12 Guiding the Player 195 Direct Guidance 196 Four Methods of Direct Guidance 197 Indirect Guidance 198 Seven Methods of Indirect Guidance 198 Teaching New Skills and Concepts 206 Summary 209 Chapter 13 Puzzle Design 211 Scott Kim on Puzzle Design 212 Puzzle Examples in Action Games 219 Summary 221 Chapter 14 The Agile Mentality 223 The Manifesto for Agile Software Development 224 Scrum Methodology 225 Burndown Chart Example 228 Creating Your Own Burndown Charts 238 Summary 238 Chapter 15 The Digital Game Industry 239 About the Game Industry 240 Game Education 243 Getting Into the Industry 246 Don't Wait to Start Making Games! 250 Summary 253 PART II: DIGITAL PROTOTYPING 255 Chapter 16 Thinking in Digital Systems 257 Systems Thinking in Board Games 258 An Exercise in Simple Instructions 259 Game Analysis: Apple Picker 261 Summary 267 Chapter 17 Introducing the Unity Development Environment 269 Downloading Unity 270 Introducing Our Development Environment 273 Launching Unity for the First Time 277 The Example Project 278 Setting Up the Unity Window Layout 278 Learning Your Way Around Unity 283 Summary 283 Chapter 18 Introducing Our Language: C# 285 Understanding the Features of C# 286 Reading and Understanding C# Syntax 292 Summary 294 Chapter 19 Hello World: Your First Program 295 Creating a New Project 296 Making a New C# Script 298 Making Things More Interesting 303 Summary 312 Chapter 20 Variables and Components 313 Introducing Variables 314 Strongly Typed Variables in C# 314 Important C# Variable Types 316 The Scope of Variables 319 Naming Conventions 319 Important Unity Variable Types 320 Unity GameObjects and Components 327 Summary 330 Chapter 21 Boolean Operations and Conditionals 331 Booleans 332 Comparison Operators 336 Conditional Statements 339 Summary 345 Chapter 22 Loops 347 Types of Loops 348 Set Up a Project 348 while Loops 348 do...while Loops 352 for Loops 352 foreach Loops 354 Jump Statements within Loops 355 Summary 357 Chapter 23 Collections in C# 359 C# Collections 360 Using Generic Collections 362 List 363 Dictionary 368 Array 371 Multidimensional Arrays 376 Jagged Arrays 379 Whether to Use Array or List 383 Summary 383 Chapter 24 Functions and Parameters 387 Setting Up the Function Examples Project 388 Definition of a Function 388 Function Parameters and Arguments 391 Returning Values 393 Proper Function Names 395 Why Use Functions? 395 Function Overloading 397 Optional Parameters 398 The params Keyword 399 Recursive Functions 400 Summary 401 Chapter 25 Debugging 403 Getting Started wit…