Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design

Scott Rogers (Thousand Oaks, CA) is a Principal Imagineer at Walt Disney. After deciding that game designers have more fun, Scott embarked on a career creating game designs for a number of successful titles including Sony's GOD OF WAR, Capcom's MAXIMO: GHOSTS TO GLORY and its sequel MAXIMO VS. ARMY OF ZIN, Namco's PAC-MAN WORLD and THQ's DRAWN TO LIFE series. He lives in Thousand Oaks with his family and a large collection of video games.

Introduction Press Start! 1 If You Are Anything Like Me 1 No, You Cant Have My Job 3 Who Is This Book For? 4 Why a Second Edition? 6 Level 1 Welcome, N00bs! 7 A Brief History of Video Games 10 The Brave New World of Gaming: Mobiles, Online Distribution, and Touchscreens 14 Game Genres 16 Who Makes This Stuff? 17 Programmer 18 Artist 19 Designer 20 Producer 20 Tester 21 Composer 22 Sound Designer 23 Writer 23 Have You Thought about Publishing? 25 Product Manager 25 Creative Manager 25 Art Director 26 Technical Director 26 Marketing Team 26 And the Rest 26 Level 2 Ideas 29 Ideas: Where to Get Them and Where to Stick Them 30 Getting Ahead of the Game 32 What Do Gamers Want? 35 Brainstorming 36 Breaking Writers Block 38 Why I Hate Fun 40 Level 3 Writing the Story 43 Once Upon a Time 43 The Triangle of Weirdness 50 A Likely Story 52 Time to Wrap It Up 55 A Game by Any Other Name 56 Creating Characters Your Players Care About 58 A Few Pointers on Writing for Kids of All Ages 62 Writing for Licenses 62 Level 4 You Can Design a Game, but Can You Do the Paperwork? 65 Writing the GDD, Step 1: The One-Sheet 68 ESRB Ratings 69 Unique Selling Points 70 Competitive Products 70 Writing the GDD, Step 2: The Ten-Pager 71 The Rule of Threes 72 The Ten-Pager Outline 73 Page 1: Title Page 73 Page 2: Game Outline 73 Page 3: Character 74 Page 4: Gameplay 75 Page 5: Game World 76 Page 6: Game Experience 76 Page 7: Gameplay Mechanics 77 Page 8: Enemies 79 Page 9: Multiplayer and Bonus Materials 80 Page 10: Monetization 80 Writing the GDD, Step 3: Gameplay Progression 81 Writing the GDD, Step 4: The Beat Chart 82 Writing the GDD, Step 5: The Game Design Document (and the Awful Truth about Writing It) 85 Writing the GDD, Step 6: Above All, Dont Be a Jerk 89 Level 5 The Three Cs, Part 1: Character 93 Who Do You Want To Be Today? 94 Personality: Do We Really Need Another Kratos? 96 Lets Get Personal 98 Using All the Parts 102 Games Without Characters 103 We Are Not Alone 104 When More Is More 107 Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? 109 Finally, We Talk About Gameplay 111 Metrics for Non-Characters 114 Be Kind to Our Four-Legged Friends 114 Why Walk When You Can Run? 114 The Art of Doing Nothing 119 Might as Well Jump 120 Hoists and Teeters 124 What Goes Up Must Fall Down 125 Me and My Shadow 126 The Waters Fine . . . or Is It? 127 Level 6 The Three Cs, Part 2: Camera 131 Get It Right: Camera Views 132 First Person Camera 136 Third Person Camera 138 Giving Up Control 142 So Youve Decided to Let the Player Control the Camera 142 So Youve Decided Not to Let the Player Have Control over the Camera 144 So Youve Decided to Let Players Sometimes Have Control over the Camera 145 Two and a Half D 145 Isometric Camera 146 Top-Down Camera 148 AR Cameras 149 Special Case Cameras 149 Tunnel Vision 150 Camera Shot Guide 150 Camera Angle Guide 153 Camera Movement Guide 154 Other Camera Notes 157 Always Point the Camera to the Objective 158 Never Let the Character Get out of the Cameras Sight 159 Multiple-Player Cameras 159 Level 7 The Three Cs, Part 3: Controls 163 Control Is in Your Hand 164 Youve Got the Touch 167 Dance, Monkey, Dance 169 Character or Camera Relative? 175 Shake, Rattle, and Roll 177 Level 8 Sign Language: HUD and Icon Design 181 Heads Up! 181 Health Bar 182 Targeting Reticule 183 Ammo Gauge 184 Inventory 185 Score/Experience 185 Positive Messaging 186 Radar/Map 187 Context-Sensitive Prompts 188 The Clean Screen 190 Icon Has Cheezburger? 191 Creating Icons for Mobile Games 194 Dont Get QTE 196 HUDs and Where to Stick Em 198 There Are Other Screens Than the HUD 199 A Final Word on Fonts 207 Level 9 Everything I Learned About Level Design, I Learned from Level