Introduction Swipe This Book! 1
Some Possible Reasons You Picked Up Swipe This! 2
Who is This Book For? 2
Working Video Game Professionals 3
Future Video Game Designers 4
Students of Game Design 5
People Who Love Video Games 6
Why Another Book on Game Design? 7
What You Won’t Find in This Book 7
Very Deep Theory 8
The Complete History of Video Games 8
How to Program Video Games 9
How to Create Video Game Art 9
Lameness 9
What You Will Find in This Book 9
Practical Information 10
Good News! 11
Chapter 1 Hardware Wars 13
Touch and Go! 18
More Things to Be Touchy About 20
Game On! 21
Destroy All Humans! 28
Developer Interview 1 Paul O’Connor 29
Chapter 2 Clown-On-A-Unicycle 33
Let’s Get High (Concept) 35
Yes, But is It a Game? 39
Really Quick Guide to the One-Sheet 40
Form Follows Function 41
Function Follows Form 42
Length Matters 43
The Average Play Session Will Last 2 to 5 Minutes 45
The Overall Game Length Should Only Be a Few Hours 45
Develop Gameplay in Terms of Depth, Not Length 48
Emphasize Repeatability Over Content 48
Create Natural Play Breaks Over the Course of the Game 49
Emergent Eschmergent 49
I Want to Be Rich and Powerful 51
Game Design Spotlight 1 Fruit Ninja HD 53
Chapter 3 Finger Fu! 57
The Fabulous Folio of Facile Fingering 60
You Only Have Two (to Four) Fingers 68
Hands Solo 70
Virtual Joysticks Suck … or Do They? 75
Hands Get Their Revenge 77
Developer Interview 2 Andy Ashcraft 81
Chapter 4 GenreBusters 85
Making a Name 91
Games Need Story … or Do They? 94
Unreliable Narrators 106
Game Design Spotlight 2 Helsing’s Fire 107
Chapter 5 Puzzlings 111
Superior Logic 115
The Problem with Math 118
Don’t Be Difficult 121
Physics: It’s for the Birds 123
Let’s Get Wet 127
Do You See What I See? 128
Hiding in Plain Sight 131
Word Up 133
And the Solution is … 135
Developer Interview 3 Erin Reynolds 137
Chapter 6 Arcade Crazy 141
The “Good Ol’ Days” 143
Games? I’ll Give You Games! 147
A-mazing Games 151
Cuteness Counts 152
The First Rule of Fighting Games … 155
Get on the Ball 159
Baby, You Can Drive My iPhone 162
Beat It, Kid 165
Everything New is Old Again 166
Game Design Spotlight 3 Where’s My Water? 171
Chapter 7 Action Guy 175
Think Like an Artist 177
The Metrics System 179
Didn’t We Already Talk about Character? 182
World Building for Fun and Profit 183
What’s with All the Zombies? 189
How to Design an Enemy in Six Easy Steps 190
Fighting for Cash and Glory! 194
Pain, Pain, Go Away, Come Again Some Other Day 201
Putting the “Ack” in “Feedback15” 202
The Only Good Player is a Dead One 203
Developer Interview 4 Blade Olsen 205
Chapter 8 DoodleCat 209
Get to the Point 210
Finger Pointers 212
The Artist’s Way 214
A Line on Fun 217
Meow Meow Meow 220
Game Design Spotlight 4 Jetpack Joyride 223
Chapter 9 Casual Fryday 227
Board Games 229
Card Games 232
Real Time Strategy Games 234
How to Create a Tech Tree 236
Tower Defense Games 238
God Games 241
Sports Games 246
RPGs and MORPGs 249
The Crown Jewel of Casual 253
To Clone or Not to Clone? 255
Developer Interview 5 Sam Rosenthal 257
Chapter 10 The New Genres 261
Micro-games 263
Gesture Games 264
The Art of Art 266
Tilt Games 268
Endless Runners 269
Augmented Reality 276
Now is the Future! 280
Game Design Spotlight 5 No, Human 281
Developer Interview 6 Andy Reeves 285
Chapter 11 Make Your Own Star Wars 289
How to Start 292
Diversion #1: How to Storyboard Gameplay 293
Diversion #2: A Word About Title Screens 296
Team Building 101 300
Sound Advice 304
The Three -ions 305
Diversion #3: Where to Find Teammates 305
RadGame-GDDFirstDraft-20XX0614-SR.doc 308
Production Pointers 309
The Topic No One Likes Talking About 310
Ship It! 314
Marketing Your Game 315
You Can Make a Game, But Can You Do the Paperwork? (Submitting Your Game) 317
Diversion #4: How to Design an Icon 318
Now Where Were We? 320
Post-Release Strategies 320
What to Do for an Encore? 321
Game Design Spotlight 6 Angry Birds 323
App-pendix 1 The Class of 2008 329
Arcade Games 329
Breaker Games 331
Classic Games 332
Puzzle Games 333
Racing Games 335
Rolling Games 335
The Others 336
App-pendix 2 Touchscreen Template 337
App-pendix 3 Gameplay Storyboarding Template 339
App-pendix 4 The Game Designer’s Checklist 341
Afterword 343
Index 345
