Game Design

Paul Schuytema (Monmouth, IL) has been a professional game developer for over ten years and in that time spoke at the previous ten GDC conferences. He has produced and designed over twenty games. Schuytema wrote more than 200 professional articles and authored or co-authored over a dozen books. He teaches college-level creative writing and journalism, and he received the Governor¿s 2002 Entrepreneurial Success Award in Illinois. He is the primary scriptor for Magic Lantern.

Foreword, Introduction, Part One: Introduction to Game Design: Ch. 1 What is Game Design?, Ch. 2 What Does a Game Designer Do?, Ch. 3 Doing Your Homework (what you need to study and learn as a designer), Ch. 4 The Design Document (a designers blueprint for success, what it is, what it needs, and starting on our own document), Ch. 5 Learning our Tools (learning the books baseline game engine and a quick Lua scripting tutorial), Part Two: Core Game Design Concepts: Ch. 6 The Atoms of a Game (the player as an agent for change, etc.), Ch. 7 Player Perception (what the player actually perceives and feels), Ch. 8 Challenge and Pattern Recognition (how to craft challenge and take advantage of patterns), Part Three: Designing a Game: Ch. 9 User Interface (the core elements of UI design), Ch. 10 Interaction Design, Ch. 11 Puzzle Design, Ch. 12 Environment Design, Ch. 13 Conflict Design and Balancing, Ch. 14 Scenario Design, Ch. 15 Risk-Reward (creating moments of player choice), Ch. 16 Storytelling, Ch. 17 Artificial Intelligence, Ch. 18 Next Steps, Appendix A About the CD-ROM, Index