How This Book Is Organized

Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design is divided into two parts . The first eight chapters are about designing games in general: what a game is, how it works, and what kinds of decisions you have to make to create one. The next ten chapters are about different genres of games and the design considerations peculiar to each genre .

Part One: The Elements of Game Design

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to game design : what the designer needs to do and why. It also discusses the key talents and skills that game designers should have.

Chapter 2 is about game concepts : where the idea for a game comes from and how to refine it. The audience and the target hardware (the machine the game will run on) both have a strong influence on the direction the game will take.

Chapter 3 is about the game's setting and world : the place where the gameplay happens, and the way things work there. As the designer, you're the god of your world, and it's up to you to define its concepts of time and space, mechanics, and natural laws, as well as many other things: its logic, emotions, culture, and values.

Chapter 4 delves into the problems of storytelling and narrative : how to create a compelling storyline, and how to balance the inevitable tension between your desire for control as a designer, and the player's desire for freedom as an actor in your world.

Chapter 5 addresses character design : inventing the people, or beings, that populate your game world ” especially the character who will represent the player there (his avatar ), if there is one. Every successful entertainer from Homer onward has understood the importance of having an appealing protagonist.

Chapter 6 is about user interface design : the way that the player experiences and interacts with the game world. A bad user interface can kill an otherwise brilliant game, so you must get this right.

Chapter 7 discusses gameplay , the heart of the player's mental experience of a game: the challenges he faces and the actions he takes to overcome them.

Chapter 8 looks at the internal economy or core mechanics of a game, and the flow of resources (money, points, ammunition , or whatever) throughout the game. It also addresses the key issue essential to all games: game balance .

Part Two: The Genres of Games

Chapter 9 is about the earliest, and still the most popular, genre of interactive entertainment: action games .

Chapter 10 discusses another genre that has been part of gaming since the beginning: strategy games , both real-time and turn -based.

Chapter 11 is about role-playing games , a natural outgrowth of pencil and paper games such as Dungeons & Dragons .

Chapter 12 looks at sports games , which have a number of peculiar design challenges. The actual contest itself is designed by others; the trick is to map human athletic activities onto a screen and control devices.

Chapter 13 addresses vehicle simulations : cars , planes, boats, and other, more exotic modes of transportation such as tanks and mechs.

Chapter 14 is about construction and management simulations , in which the player tries to build and maintain something ”a city, a theme park, a planet ”within the limitations of an economic system.

Chapter 15 explores adventure games , an old and unique genre of gaming recently given new life by the creation of a hybrid type, the action adventure.

Chapter 16 examines a variety of other types of games: artificial life , software toys , puzzle games , and so on.

Chapter 17 is devoted to online games , which is not a genre but a technology. Online games enable people to play with, or against, each other in numbers from two up to hundreds of thousands. Playing against real people that you cannot see has enormous consequences for the game's design. The second half of the chapter addresses the particular problems of persistent worlds like EverQuest .

Chapter 18 takes a look at the future of gaming and where we believe the medium will go, both in the short and long term .

Part Three: Appendixes

Appendix A includes sample design documents and an extensive discussion of what they're used for.

Appendix B is a bibliography of works that either we used in writing this book, or that we find particularly useful in creating our own designs.