Chapter 3: Basic Building Blocks of a Game

Overview

To create games, you will need to learn, and perhaps even master, the fundamental elements that make up a game—sights, sounds, and interactivity. Although interactivity (or the ability to interact with a computer to play a game) is important, the basics of interactivity are dependent on game type and the application you are using to develop the game. We will learn more about interactivity in the tutorials later in the book as we make several different types of games using various tools. In this chapter, we will concern ourselves with the core building blocks that exist in virtually every game—sights and sounds.

Note

Some of the materials in this chapter originally appeared in Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required, Second Edition, 2002 by Charles River Media, Inc.

This simple approach is to help you break down and understand a game in your mind at its most fundamental level. This knowledge can be applied to many areas beyond game development as well, since this is the core of graphic design, Web layout, and almost all interactive computing.