Game Design - Theory Practice, Second Edition | Game Design: Theory and Practice (2nd Edition) (Wordware Game Developers Library)

Richard Rouse III

Illustrations by: Steve Ogden
Foreword by: Noah Falstein

Atomic Sam character designed by Richard Rouse III and Steve Ogden

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rouse, Richard.
Game design: theory & practice / by Richard Rouse III ; illustrations by
Steve Ogden. ”2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55622-912-7 (pbk.)
1. Computer games ”Programming. I. Title.
QA76.76.C672R69 2004
794.8'1526 ”dc22
2004015102
CIP

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ISBN 1-55622-912-7
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Copyright Notices

Portions of Chapter 18, Interview: Jordan Mechner, originally appeared in Inside Mac Games magazine. Used with kind permission.

Images from the 3D version of Centipede and 2000 Atari Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission. Though the game is referred to as Centipede 3D in this book in order to differentiate it from the older game, its proper name is simply Centipede. Images from Super Breakout, Asteroids, Centipede, Millipede, and Tempest or ¢ and 2000 Atari Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.

Images from Pathways into Darkness, Marathon, Marathon 2, Marathon Infinity, Myth: The Fallen Lords, and Halo or ¢ and 2000 Bungie Software Products Corporation. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.

Images from Balance of Power, Trust and Betrayal: The Legacy of Siboot, Balance of Power II: The 1990 Edition, Guns & Butter, Balance of the Planet, and the Erasmatron or ¢ and 2000 Chris Crawford. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.

Images from Ultima Online 2004 Electronic Arts Inc. Ultima and Ultima Online are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries . All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.

Images from Spellcasting 101 1990 Legend Entertainment Company, Spellcasting 201 1991 Legend Entertainment Company, and Superhero League of Hoboken 1994 Legend

Images from SimCity, SimEarth, SimAnt, SimCity 2000, SimCopter, SimCity 3000, The Sims, and The Sims Online and 2004 Maxis, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission. Images from Karateka, Prince of Persia, and The Last Express or ¢ and 2004 Jordan Mechner. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.

Images from F-15 Strike Fighter, Pirates!, F-19 Stealth Fighter, Covert Action, Railroad Tycoon, Civilization, and Civilization II or ¢ and 2000 Microprose, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.

Images from Gauntlet , Gauntlet II , Xybots ¢, San Francisco Rush: The Rock - Alcatraz Edition ¢, San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing , San Francisco Rush 2049 ¢, and Gauntlet Legends 2000 Midway Games West, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission. Images from Defender , Robotron: 2048 , Joust , and Sinistar 2000 Midway Amusement Games, LLC. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.

Images from Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, and Mario Kart: Double Dash and 2004 Nintendo of

Images from The Next Tetris ¢ and 1999 Elorg, sublicensed to Hasbro Interactive, Inc. by The Tetris Company. Tetris 1987 Elorg. Original Concept & Design by Alexey Pajitnov. The Next Tetris ¢ licensed to The Tetris Company and sublicensed to Hasbro Interactive, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.

Dedication

In memory of Jamie.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Steve Ogden for coming back to Atomic Sam and breathing life into the little kid once again.

Thanks to Noah Falstein, James Hague, Damion Schubert, Ian Parberry, and Margaret Rogers for looking over my work and providing me with invaluable feedback and support, which have improved this book tremendously.

Thanks also to TomHall, Katherine Isbister, Darius Kazemi, and Michael Eilers for their comments on this book and how it might be made better the second time around.

Thanks to Doug Church, Chris Crawford, Ed Logg, Jordan Mechner, Sid Meier, Steve Meretzky, and Will Wright for graciously subjecting themselves to my nearly endless questioning.

Thanks to Wes Beckwith, Beth Kohler, Martha McCuller, Alan McCuller, Denise McEvoy, Tim McEvoy, and everyone at Wordware for making this book once again become a reality.

For their help with this book, thanks to Jim Hill, Steve Crane, Ken Fedesna, George Gomez, Rob Gustafson, Reilly Brennan, Robin Hunicke, Matt Bertz, Scott Miller, Jenny Huldschiner, Tyrone Miller, Carol Quito, Rannie Yoo, Loretta Stevens, JasonWonacott, Doug Zartman, Benson Russell, John Scott Lewinski, Ari Feldman, Laura J. Mixon-Gould, Jeff Buccelatto, Jayson Hill, Laura Pokrifka, Josh Moore, Lisa Sokulski, Dan Harnett, Steffan Levine, Susan Wooley, Chris Brandkamp, Kelley Gilmore, Lindsay Riehl, Patrick Buechner, Greg Rizzer, Lori Mezoff, Jenna Mitchell, Ericka Shawcross, Maryanne Lataif, Bryce Baer, Bob Bates, James Conner, Lisa Tensfeldt, Paula Cook, Donald Knapp, and Diana Fuentes.

Thanks to Jamil Moledina, Jennifer Olsen, Alex Dunne,& everyone at Game Developer /Gamasutra, Gordon Cameron, Tuncer Deniz, Bart Farkas, Andy Eddy, Brian Moriarty, Scott McCloud, Ed Magnin, Bernd Kreimeier, Andrew Rollings, George Broussard, Jason Della Rocca, Dave Astle, Tom Russo, Kevin Toyama, Greg Orlando, George Jones, Owain Bennallack, Matthew Percival, Dishad Husain, Julie Perkins, Angie Cox & everyone at Gamer.tv, Jon Goodwin, Christopher Erhardt, Jonathan Kay, Neil Morton, Stephen Granade, Jeff Vogel, Laura Heon, Kaarin Lemstrom-Sheedy & MassMOCA, Troy Dunniway, Clay Heaton, Rich Carlson, Iikka Keranen, Curt Feldman & everyone at E3, Alan Patmore, Nick Radovich & everyone at Surreal, David Zucker & everyone at Midway, Mark Bullock, the Leaping Lizard crew, Brian Rice, Lee Waggoner, Pat Alphonso, Peter Tamte, Nate Birkholtz, Al Schilling, Cindy Swanson & everyone at MacSoft, Alex Seropian, Jason Jones, Jim McNally, Jeff O Connor, Ira Harmon, Gordon Marsh, Glenn Fabry, Derek Riggs, and Chuck Schuldiner.

Special thanks to Richard & Regina Rouse, Dave Rouse, Linda Rouse, Grayson Starner, Margaret Rogers & the Rogers clan, June Oshiro & Matt Bockol, Ben Young, Alain, Annalisa, & Alexandria Roy, Katie & Eric Pidkameny, Gail Jabbour, Amy & Jason Schigelone, Rafael & Belinda Brown, Eloise Pasachoff, Kristin Kane, and Christian & Logan Bell.

About the Author

Richard Rouse III is Design Director at Surreal Software, a Midway Home Entertainment studio. Most recently, he was project lead, lead designer, and writer on the action- horror title The Suffering . Rouse has been developing games professionally for over a decade , during which he has worked on games for the PC, Macintosh, Sega Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Microsoft Xbox. In addition to The Suffering , his credits include Drakan: The Ancients Gates , Centipede 3D , Damage Incorporated , and Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis . Rouse has written about game design for publications including Game Developer , SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics , Develop , Gamasutra , MyVideoGames.com, and Inside Mac Games , and has spoken on game development several times at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Your Feedback

Your feedback to this book, including corrections, comments, or merely friendly ramblings, is encouraged. Please mail them to the author at gdtp@paranoidproductions.com. You will also find the web page for this book, which will be used to track corrections, updates, and other items of interest, at www.paranoidproductions.com/gamedesign. See you there.

About the Artist

Steve Ogden has been scribbling on paper forever and working in the game industry almost that long. He met Richard Rouse III a lifetime ago while they were working together on Hasbro s Centipede 3D . Later, the two men cooked up Atomic Sam as a character to illustrate a book on game design principles, the precursor to the tome you now hold in your hands. Ogden drew the pictures for that book while at Cyan working on realMYST and URU . He is now happy to be back in the green hills of home in Maryland s hunt country, working at Firaxis. It was while finishing up work on Sid Meier s Pirates! and beginning work on Civilization IV that he was asked once again to scribble some Atomic Sam illustrations for this new edition, including a shiny new full- color cover! To say he jumped at the chance is to indulge in understatement. Ogden finds Sam to be a fun subject and his universe intriguing, and wonders aloud if Atomic Sam will one day become an actual game, not just a character in a book about games . . .