Better Game Characters by Design

Associate Professor, Department of Language, Literature and Communication, RPI; Director of the Games Research Lab, RPI; Chair of the MS in HCI Program, RPI. Katherine is Director of the Games Research Lab at Rensselaer (RPI), where she has worked to build an undergraduate major in game design, as well as a robust program of games-related research. She is also the Chair of the MS in HCI at RPI, which she helped to redesign to address current challenges facing HCI practitioners, such as the design of games and other social and leisure applications. Katherine is a former MK Game author, having written: Better Game Characters by Design: A Psychological Approach, which was nominated for a Game Developer Magazine Front Line award in 2006. She has published work in a wide variety of venues, and has given invited talks at research and academic venues including Sony research labs in Japan, Banff Centre in Canada, IBM, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and others. The Games Research Lab at RPI has cutting-edge facilities for user studies, and Isbister has used the lab to research innovative methods in user testing (e.g. the Sensual Evaluation Instrument - a project nominated for Best Paper award at the CHI conference in 2006). Isbister has worked in both research and commercial settings on HCI and usability aspects of games and other products. This background, combined with strong connections to game industry practitioners, makes her well suited to put together an edited volume on games usability that is both rigorous and useful to developers in their everyday work.

Foreword by Tim Schafer Preface About the DVD I First Impressions What Is Covered and Why Who Will Find Part I Most Useful Overview of Key Concepts Take-Aways from Part I 1 Social Surface 1.1 What Is Covered and Why 1.2 The Psychological Principles 1.3 Design Pointers 1.4 Interview: Gonzalo Frasca 1.5 Summary and What Is Next 1.6 Exercises 1.7 Further Reading 2 Practical Questions--Dominance, Friendliness, and Personality 2.1 What Is Covered and Why 2.2 The Psychological Principles 2.3 Design Pointers 2.4 Summary and What Is Next 2.5 Exercises 2.6 Further Reading II Focus on the Player What Is Covered and Why Who Will Find Part II Most Useful Overview of Key Concepts Take-Aways from Part II 3 Culture 3.1 What Is Covered and Why 3.2 The Psychological Principles 3.3 Design Pointers 3.4 Interview: Ryoichi Hasegawa and Roppyaku Tsurumi of Sony 3.5 Interview: Lewis Johnson 3.6 Summary and What Is Next 3.7 Exercises 3.8 Further Reading 4 Gender 4.1 What Is Covered and Why 4.2 The Psychological Principles 4.3 Design Pointers 4.4 Interviews with Gamers-Personal Perspectives 4.5 Summary and What Is Next 4.6 Exercises 4.7 Further Reading III Using a Character's Social Equipment What Is Covered and Why Who Will Find Part III Most Useful Overview of Key Concepts Take-Aways from Part III 5 The Face 5.1 What Is Covered and Why 5.2 The Psychological Principles 5.3 Design Pointers 5.4 Summary and What Is Next 5.5 Exercises 5.6 Further Reading 6 The Body 6.1 What Is Covered and Why 6.2 The Psychological Principles 6.3 Design Pointers 6.4 Interview: Chuck Clanton 6.5 Summary and What Is Next 6.6 Exercise 6.7 Further Reading 7 The Voice 7.1 What Is Covered and Why 7.2 The Psychological Principles 7.3 Design Pointers 7.4 Further Directions--Emotion Detection 7.5 Interview: MIT Media Lab's Zeynep Inanoglu and Ron Caneel 7.6 Summary and What Is Next 7.7 Exercise 7.8 Further Reading 7.9 Answers to Exercises IV Characters in Action What Is Covered and Why Who Will Find Part IV Most Useful Overview of Key Concepts Take-Aways from Part IV 8 Player-Characters 8.1 What Is Covered and Why 8.2 The Psychological Principles 8.3 Design Pointers 8.4 Interview: Marc Laidlaw 8.5 Summary and What Is Next 8.6 Exercises 8.7 Further Reading 8.8 Acknowledgments 9 Nonplayer-Characters 9.1 What Is Covered and Why 9.2 The Psychological Principles 9.3 Dimensions of Social Roles and NPCs 9.4 Common Social Roles in Games 9.5 Design Guidelines 9.6 Summary and What Is Next 9.7 Exercises 9.8 Further Reading V Putting It All Together What Is Covered and Why Who Will Find Part V Most Useful Overview of Key Concepts Take-Aways from Part V 10 Process 10.1 What Is Covered and Why 10.2 Arguments for Bringing a Social-Psychological Approach to Game Development 10.3 The Development Time Line 10.4 Building in the Social-Psychological Approach 10.5 Interview: Tim Schafer 10.6 Summary and What Is Next 10.7 Further Reading 11 Evaluation 11.1 What Is Covered and Why 11.2 The Psychological Principles 11.3 Current Evaluation Practice in Game Design: Market Research and Play Testing 11.4 Taking Design to the Next Level with Preproduction Evaluation 11.5 A Note on Postproduction Evaluation 11.6 Evaluation Checklist 11.7 Games Usability Perspectives 11.8 Interview: Randy Pagulayan 11.9 Interview: Nicole Lazzaro 11.10 Affective Sensing: An Evaluation Method for the Future? 11.11 Summary 11.12 Exercises 11.13 Further Reading Appendix Index