Hands-on tools, exercises, walkthroughs, and resources for new game designers. All you need is a pencil! In The Game Designer's Workbook, two experienced game designers, Bobby Lockhart and Eric Lang, walk you through design tips and exercises you can apply immediately to take your next game to the next level. The authors draw on decades of combined experience in game design, helping you ideate, storyboard, create fun and challenging levels, and more. The book is structured as a set of practical exercises and examples to give budding game designers hands-on experience with the nuts and bolts of designing games. Equipped only with a pencil, you can level-up your skills in critical areas of game design. While you're free to use a computer, a pair of dice, or to team up with a group of friends, The Game Designer's Workbook lets you develop your skills whenever you've got something to write with and 10 minutes of spare time. The book includes reflection sections that allow you to think deeply about your future game design practice, challenges that prompt you to modify and improve an existing game, break down games into their component parts to better understand their inner workings, and discussions of concepts common to all sorts of games. You'll also find: O A link to a companion website that includes additional resources, like printable resources, extra dot grid pages, papercraft exercises, random number generators, and scaffolded work pages O Explanations of cross-disciplinary skills useful for any aspiring game designers O Stand-alone chapters you can tackle beginning-to-end or one at a time The Game Designer's Workbook is an essential toolkit for aspiring and beginning game designers, as well as anyone interested in games and game design.
How to Use This Book xi
Types of Exercises xiii
Additional Resources xiv
Setting the Stage 1
Reflection: Who Is the Game Designer You? 2
What Is .a GDD? 4
Remix: Tic-Tac-Toe (Naughts & Crosses) 8
Level Design: Mazes 11
What a Concept: Accessibility 18
Think Like a Game Designer 22
Cross-Training: Schematic Drawing 24
Breaking It Down: Capturing the Feeling 27
Randomized Game Idea: Pencil-and-Paper Games 29
Abstract Strategy 35
Reflection: A Gameplay Memory 36
Remix: Connect Four 38
What a Concept: Forks 41
Level Design: Dots and Boxes 44
Think Like a Game Designer 46
What Is .MDA? 47
Narrative Design: Abstract Strategy 49
Breaking It Down: Discretizing Time and Space 52
Narrative Design: Theming 55
Randomized Game Idea: Abstract Strategy 58
Story 63
Cross-Training: Storyboarding 64
What a Concept: Story Flow 72
Narrative Design: Roll and Move 74
Randomized Game Idea: Hidden Role 79
Breaking It Down: Anatomy of a Story 82
Sport 85
Reflection: Rules Heavy and Light 86
Level Design: Soccer/Football 88
Remix: Basketball 91
Randomized Game Idea: Sport 93
Breaking It Down: Playground Games 95
Cross-Training: Toy Design 97
Word Games 101
Reflection: Serious Games 102
Remix: Word Scramble 104
Level Design: Crossword Puzzle 108
Randomized Game Idea: Word Game 111
Remix: Hangman 113
Level Design: Word Find 115
What a Concept: Chain Reactions 118
Quantitative 121
Reflection: Player Feedback 122
Cross-Training: Probability 124
What a Concept: Emergence 128
Breaking It Down: Balance 134
What a Concept: Randomness 138
Narrative Design: Variables 140
Level Design: Race Track 142
Remix: Battling Ships 145
What a Concept: Randomness 2 150
Outside the Box 153
Reflection: Player Creativity 154
Cross-Training: Theme Park Design 156
Breaking It Down: Bodies 160
Narrative Design: Micro-RPG 163
Characters 165
Randomized Game Idea: Roll and Move 167
Cross-Training: Pub Trivia 170
Bonus Round 173
Reflection: Sources of Value in Games 174
Cross-Training: Wireframes 175
Breaking It Down: Drawing Games 177
Level Design: Sokoban 180
Reflection: Continuing to Grow 184
Further Reading 185
Appendix A: Random Dice, Cards, Letters 189
Appendix B: Additional Workspaces and Grids 191
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