Table of Contents: Lazy Designer Book 2 – Making the Next Game
The other day I posted the table of contents for the first book, so I figured I should do the same for the second! Tomorrow I’ll post the table of contents for Book 3.
Here’s the blurb:
Practical advice for designers already working in the games industry and wishing to hone their skills as well as for those aspiring to such a career.
The author, an industry veteran with over ten years experience (lead designer Dragon Age – Origins) explains how companies decide which videogames to make, how to build designer-friendly game engines and pipelines and how to prototype and test.
Along the way the author explores his own experiences with game development and the difficulties he encountered adjusting to life at his dream job. With practical and blunt advice, the Lazy Designer will give you the skills necessary for becoming a valued, and maybe even essential, member of any development team.
Table of Contents
Chapter 4: A Beginning
New Game
Overview
What Game Will Be Made?
Platform Choice
Digital Rights Management (DRM)
What Game Should *YOU* Make
Originality and Complexity
Bias and Expectation
Summary
Chapter 5: Designing Experience
User Interface and Experience
Overview
What Should the User Interface Do?
What a User Interface Should Not Do
Documentation
Player Flow
Overview
Changing the Way the Game is Played
Gameplay versus Cinematics
Designing by Data
Pee Happens
Designing Frustration
Overview
Game Design Frustrations
When Frustration is Frustrating
Designing Good Frustration
Emotional Narratives and Frustration
Surprise Frustrations
A (Frustratingly Fun) RPG Game Overview
Summary
CHAPTER 6 – Building a Game
Engine and Pipeline
Overview
New Engine versus Old Engine
Core Pipeline Principles
Accountability
A Functional Pipeline: Baldur’s Gate 2
Data Management
Overview
Storing Data
Data Instance vs Templates
Localization
Asset Tracking
Savegame
Giving Them Tools
Summary
CHAPTER 7 – Testing and Prototyping
Testing
Overview
Prototype Testing
Day to Day Testing
Focus Testing
Beta Testing
After Ship Testing
Testing Tools
Prototyping
Overview
Why Prototype?
When to Prototype
How To Prototype?
Who is Involved
Evaluating and Tweaking Your Prototype
Case Studies
Summary
CHAPTER 8 – Between Projects
Keeping Busy
Overview
Tinkering
Skill Improvement
Post Mortems
Scripting
Overview
Neverwinter Nights
Scratch
Sifteo Cubes and C#
Final Word about Scripting Languages
Summary
And here’s a snippet from a review of the Lazy Designer 2:
No fluff. To the point. This is a great introductory series on how to be a game designer. I only wish Knowles would hurry up and finish the next one.
From Cal’s Review on Amazon.
Also, for this week, “How To Script For Games “(an excerpt from Book 2) is available as a free download from Amazon.
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Buy in the UK Buy in Canada |
Buy in the UK Buy in Canada |
Buy in the UK Buy in Canada |
Brent Knowles
Former lead designer at BioWare (Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights). Creator of Raiders of the Serpent Sea.
15 Comments
@taxterry
Looks very useful as I discover my interest in gaming is increasing!
Miriam Slozberg
Looks great thanks! I am quite interested in gaming as well.
Brent Knowles
Cool.
Brent Knowles
How it is useful!
disqus_qfSubz9Qh8
Looks interesting
Harold Gardner
I still find myself amazed that you can earn a living with video games…life is so crazy!
Shakthi Vadakkepat
wow! Gaming is complicated!
Brent Knowles
Yeah, kind of :)
Kevin Morrice
I love that you cover every aspect of game design! I”m definitely considering this series for my son. He already loves Scratch.
Brent Knowles
D’oh. In my previous comment I mentioned Scratch, but I see he already uses it!
Darren Wall
If I was a designer I’d probably consider myself to be lazy! It’s great that someone has thought of the likes of me, and then wrote about something interesting that I would be interested in learning :-)
Brent Knowles
:) Lazy is definitely a point of view. When I made games I always wanted to focus on adding the fun elements and not the drudgery of data entry. Whenever a boring task can be minimized to make room for more entertaining tasks, life is good.
Howard W Bailey
A well developed outline, something I am recommending to my son (who is a level-designer in a game Studio he is partners in). Well done!
Brent Knowles
Thanks, Howard.
laurinda
Will be a great book with great guidelines for any game designer. A wonderful resource.