Game Design: A Practical Approach 85
Aeonite writes "As the title suggests, Game Design: A Practical Approach presents a practical approach to game design — one that is almost too practical in places. The book does a good job of covering many of the foundational elements of game design (called "atoms" by the author), but in places the level of practical detail — and the heavy focus on Lua code examples — is a bit hard to work through. Readers allergic to code may find themselves skipping over swaths of text instead of actually reading it." Read below for the rest of Michael's review.
Schuytema is a game industry veteran, perhaps best known for having worked on the original incarnation of Prey back in 1998 or thereabouts. These days it seems he's employed by the University of Illinois as an Extension Specialist, and it certainly seems to have rubbed off on him, as the book is written in a very scholarly, textbook-like fashion. The preface speaks of "foundational information," and while the exciting parts of working in the game industry are mentioned as well, generally the book's subtitle ("A Practical Approach") is precisely what you get.
| Game Design: A Practical Approach | |
| author | Paul Schuytema |
| pages | 416 |
| publisher | Charles River Media |
| rating | 6 |
| reviewer | Michael Fiegel |
| ISBN | 978-1-58450-471-9 |
| summary | A practical, often code-heavy guide to game design |
The book is broken into three parts. The first, the aptly (and practically) named "Introduction to Game Design," consists of six chapters, covering the basic foundational elements of game design, game design documents, coding tools and the like. The advice in the first four chapters, in particular, comes across as a bit too practical, if not downright pedantic, as the author discusses things like listening, taking notes, and reading. In chapter 4 the author even covers the merits of breathing properly, getting enough sleep and not eating junk food (good luck encouraging that at a game company; we lived on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups at Perpetual Entertainment). One wonders if the current generation of whippersnappers, just entering the industry, really needs to be told to get a good night's sleep; if so, we're in for some interesting games over the next few decades.
Some of the advice here is genuinely useful and interesting, such as methods for helping inspire creative thought, brainstorming and developing memory. Chapters 5 and 6 are also more relevant to game design; the former covers game design documents, pitch docs, functional specifications, and the like, and is one of the tightest and most useful chapters in the book. Chapter 6 then dives headlong into the Lua scripting language, which is where the book's focus on game design sort of drifts sideways into the realm of game development. From this point on, the book is sporadically riddled with code examples, references to the example game on the included CD, and detailed explanations of variables, operators, functions and control structures. This is useful, if dry, but it seems to be directed more at the indie "casual game" industry where game designer, game programmer, game artist, game writer, and game publisher are all the same person.
The second part of the book, "Game Design Theory," covers high level design concepts broken down into what the author calls "game atoms". Examples include things like: having a clear goal for the player; providing subvictories to the player; allowing the player to affect the game world; making the context of the game understandable to the player; and so on. These are insightful, and easy to understand and digest, and were the entire book filled with nothing but these I would find it all the more valuable. Sadly, this section is also the shortest in the book (spanning just over 50 pages), and although later chapters in this section do manage to dive into things like player perceptions and challenges, I find myself wanting more. In covering the concept of game "flow" and losing oneself in the moment, the section does earn geek points for citing Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose name looks like catlike typing should have been detected. But I digress.
Part 3, approximately half of the book, is devoted to "Real-World Game Design," which moves away from "theatrical underpinnings" and into more (you guessed it) "practical" issues. Here, specific "atoms" such as UI, inventory, power-ups, puzzles, conflicts, and the like are covered in some depth, each presented with code to show how the relevant "atom" might be programmed (examples taken from the sandbox game named Eye Opener, included on the accompanying CD). In places the density of code calls to mind the BASIC game programming books I owned in the late '80s, where if I had 6 hours to type I could make a rocket blast off the top of my Apple IIe monitor. In fact, one of the most interesting comments is on page 336 where the author discusses early games on the Apple II, where "(r)eplay of the game meant going for higher scores, since a single pass through the game was maybe 20 minutes tops." Schuytema speaks as if these are games from a bygone era, but it seems to me he's basically describing the modern casual game, of which there are many, many thousands in the wild. Much of the latter material, alas, seems to drift back into the realm of the "overly practical," with the author covering storytelling atoms such as outlining, writing, revising, and working with a writer. The final chapter, "Next Steps," then presents the ever popular "how to break into the industry" section, which covers very practical, but again somewhat obvious topics such as going to school, networking, and following game websites.
Each chapter ends with a summary and a series of "Chapter Exercises" that hammer home the feeling that this book is really more of a textbook, complete with homework assignments, rather than a casual read. Even the index is almost TOO complete and practical, with entries for brief, passing mentions of Barnes & Noble and Yahoo!; I was surprised not to find an entry for Mountain Dew, since it's mentioned a few times more often in the text and seems somewhat more relevant to the game industry. The book also offers a number of "from the trenches" sidebars throughout, each featuring veterans espousing on various elements of the game industry. These are interesting and often insightful, but their overall impact is somewhat reduced considering that fully half of them (11 of 22) feature the author himself. It seems that a broader selection of insights and examples from other designers in the industry would have served to balance the book a bit more.
Also worth at least a passing mention is the issue of the postage-stamp-sized images and screenshots that pepper game books these days. Many of the pictures in this book are difficult to make out due to their clarity and size (Figure 1.1 looks like some guys from Home Depot are about to encounter the Blair Witch), but most can be puzzled through. Even then, although they generally have relevance to the subject being discussed they often don't really reinforce the concept at hand in a useful fashion: Figure 3.1 is a picture of a marble notebook and some pencils, as if the book were written in a future time when knowledge of writing materials was lost; Figure 3.4 is captioned "Use your finger as an eye guide..." and contains a picture of a book with a finger on it; Figure 10.3's caption mentions "the samurai sword" weapon in Shadow Warrior, yet the screenshot apparently depicts a grenade launcher. The capper is probably page 194, which is supposed to illustrate multiplayer gaming, but instead (as far as I can tell) depicts two mid-'90s Inside Sales reps playing Solitaire instead of phoning clients. Possibly they are car salesmen; it's not clear.
Warts aside, as a whole Game Design: A Practical Approach covers quite a lot of terrain in quite a useful fashion, and hits all the major foundational points about game design. Though it does contain quite a lot of Lua code, this is admittedly not as irrelevant as it could have been, since Lua is used in a wide assortment of games, from Far Cry to Natural Selection 2, Warhammer Online to The Witcher. The book is a few years old at this point, but it seems that it will remain relevant as long as Lua remains a viable programming language in the game industry. Left-brainers in search of a fairly crunchy and quite practical book about game design AND development (and in particular those who want to design and develop their own games, rather than work for someone else) will be quite happy with the material here. Those right-brainers more comfortable amidst the fluffier bits of the game industry, however, may find themselves checking their watches halfway through the second act.
You can purchase Game Design: A Practical Approach from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Why there is so much emphasis on design (Score:1, Insightful)
Programmers are a dime a dozen. That ain't nothing but ten-cent coding.
Designers, though, are the core of any game. They are the ones who shape and craft the game, much like I.M. Pei designs masterful works of architecture. The programmers are just the construction workers who make the design a reality. Both are skilled and necessary, but construction workers without an architect aren't going to build anything of great value.
That's why Lua is such a great teaching language, and why I think this book does really well. The focus is on the design of the games first and foremost. What are the gamer's needs? What are the goals and subgoals for each level? That's the most important thing. And Lua is a great language to help bring those designs into reality.
Yes, coding is necessary, and this book has plenty of code. But if you are serious about creating a game, it's the design that matters, the implementation can be farmed off to any body shop.
Re:Why there is so much emphasis on design (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction. Mediocre programmers are a dime a dozen. Any comp sci grad with a 6pack of coke can get through directX 9 tutorials and have a decent floating ball, swimming shark. Good/Great programmers are a rarity indeed, and good games ALWAYS have a good programmer behind them. No lag in input, decent framerate, no odd bugs. Yeah, they deserve their paycheque.
In my work, I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
In my work as a programmer, I often have to fill in huge gaps left by the designers, and the designers usually only get the best ideas after they have seen what the engine can do.
Also, the specification of the average designer is so vague in terms of programming, e.g. "I want the program to be smarter than the user" that it is worthless.
Because of this any fulltime designer is usually in the top 5% of his craft, while a fulltime programmer still can be useful if he isn't in the top 5%.
Best Game Design Advice (Score:3, Insightful)
"Make Games, Not Product."
It is a subtle and deepy philisophical statement. Doom 3 was a product, a game engine to be specific. Same with Unreal 2. Both were lousy games.
Technologically they were impressive yes, but a game, not so much.
You have to go in making a GAME. That will shape the entire development process versus going into it as a product otherwise the video game industry will burn itself out just like the movie industry... wait... shit.. We complain about how remakes and sequels in movies but video games? Lets make another ZELDA... crap.. too late...
Re:In my work, I disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
Programming and design are still distinct. When filling in blanks left by designers, you are doing design. When you are shaping what the engine will accommodate, you are also doing design. When you implement the design in code, you are "programming" (in the "ten-cent coding" sense of the word).
I think that in the real world, most "programmers" must be coders and designers, whereas designers need not be coders. That said, a good designer is probably worth more between the two, since the quality of design is what determines the potential quality of the end-product.
Everyone should make 2 games (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone taking programming should learn to program two specific games in the course of their curriculum:
TETRIS (Collision detection, input , output, real time game loop, sound, etc.. 2D collision)
Multiplayer FPS Clone (3D programming, basic modelling, networking, latency management, using established middleware, map design)
That will teach those kids that said, "When am I ever going to use Linear Algebra in real life!"
Whippersnappers...
Re:Why there is so much emphasis on design (Score:5, Insightful)
> Programmers are a dime a dozen. That ain't nothing but ten-cent coding.
Oh please. Ideas are dime a dozen too. Your great idea means jack shit if it isn't implemented.
_Great_ Programmers, and _Great_ Designers, are much, much rarer.
I'm not sure how many years of game programming you have (sounds like you don't have much), but you are ignoring important pieces of game development:
* An architect who is illiterate of the materials used to build the building, will spec something that can't be built. Designers tend to ignore run-time costs because they don't understand the technical reasons why you can't implement their "grand idea." Good AI is not computational cheap.
* Often times, design "hand waves" how systems will work, because they can't be bothered with the actual nitty-gritty details. The devil is in the (implementation) details.
* More and more game designers are doing programming via scripting. Designers for the most part, are clueless about writing _good_ code (due to inexperience), and heaven help the programmer who has to debug their scripts. In the ideal world a designer would work _together_ with a programmer so that BOTH may learn each other's craft.
> the implementation can be farmed off to any body shop.
Uhm, no.
Some things look great on paper, but in practice, are bad ideas.
Sometimes a great execution, will make an OK idea, be good !
I would seriously consider learning more about design and programming before spouting off.
Re:In my work, I disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe I'm being way to literal, but how do the brakes know the difference between cement and water that feels like cement at hundreds of MPH?
Re:In my work, I disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe I'm being way to literal, but how do the brakes know the difference between cement and water that feels like cement at hundreds of MPH?
Grats, you just passed the test of "programmers have a responsibility to .... mention anything that did not make sense"
Re:Why there is so much emphasis on design (Score:3, Insightful)
And an architect without construction workers is nothing but a second-rate sketch artist who draws only (imaginary) buildings.
Re:Why there is so much emphasis on design (Score:3, Insightful)
Programmers are a dime a dozen. That ain't nothing but ten-cent coding.
Designers, though, are the core of any game.
I used to work writing video games, and still do some coding in the CustomTF mod.
We had an expression: anyone can design a game. The hard part is implementing it, and implementing it well.
Look at the open source community for proof.
Three times this year so far, I've had people approach me with an idea for a game, but didn't bring anything to the table themselves. Though to be fair one was a CS guy, and another was mostly useless, but knew some other people willing to work on the project with me if I wanted to do it.
Re:Why there is so much emphasis on design (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why there is so much emphasis on design (Score:5, Insightful)
Programmers are a dime a dozen. That ain't nothing but ten-cent coding.
I feel a bit silly responding to obvious flamebait, but it's been modded insightful for some bizarre reason. As a professional game programmer, I feel the need to respond. A *professional* game developer understands and appreciates the values of his co-workers in ALL disciplines. There's no room for some stupid 'us' vs. 'them' mentality. I'm fortunate to work with some brilliant artists and designers. We programmers produce not only the game code, but also internal tools that are essentially "force multipliers" for them. In return, they use our code and tools and produce cool and amazing things we would never have thought of.
They are the ones who shape and craft the game, much like I.M. Pei designs masterful works of architecture. The programmers are just the construction workers who make the design a reality. Both are skilled and necessary, but construction workers without an architect aren't going to build anything of great value.
This is Slashdot. You need a car analogy.
You're claiming the steering wheel (designer) is the most important part of the car, because without it, we couldn't control the car (direct the game development). But there are so many vital systems to the car - removing any one of these components makes the car useless, so it's silly to argue which one is 'most important'. What good is the car without wheels? Without an engine? Or brakes, or a body? Even the more minor roles (headlights and tail lights) are critical for specific circumstances.
Yes, coding is necessary, and this book has plenty of code. But if you are serious about creating a game, it's the design that matters, the implementation can be farmed off to any body shop.
I wish you well with that approach. Unless you take ALL aspects of game development seriously, you're doomed to failure.