Tag: Game Development

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Book Review

Fundamentals of Game Design – Book Review

Fundamentals of Game Design (3rd Edition) – by Ernest Adams – is a great book that covers a lot of what you need to know do design games. Note that game design is not about art or programming – it is mostly about what makes a game playable.

The book covers the many areas of design, including how to come up with the idea, how to develop it into something fun, character and level design, and even how to monetize your game.

I really enjoyed the book, and whenever I play a game now I keep noticing the small details of how it was designed – and how things contribute to the fun or harm it.

After every chapter, there is a section with questions for you to think about what was covered in the chapter and how it apply to a specific game – and also as homework on academic situations. There is also another set of questions that you can use as focus on your projects.

Overall, I loved it and feel it is a great read to anyone interested in game design.

There is also a set of very short books in specific genres – such as shooters, puzzle games, strategy, etc. I have read a couple of them already, and I recommend them – they are a little expensive for the amount of content, though (I am reading them on Safari, myself, so they were free). A couple are included with the book registration at the publisher's site – Construction and Strategy.

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Product Review

Principles of Game Design – Course Review

I recently completed the course Principles of Game Design, on Coursera, from Michigan State University. This course is part of the Game Design and Development Specialization.

I have reviewed the first course in the series – Introduction to Game Development .

This one covers how to design games – having game ideas, creating a story, characters and most of all good gameplay.

It is far less practical than the first, given its nature, although you are supposed to make a prototype of your game for the final assignment.

I took the free version, which unlike the first course, doesn't have quizzes and you can't turn in assignments (of course, you are free to make and evaluate then on your own).

One thing I particularly liked is that every video has a linked transcription. If you read faster than the video, on most classes in this course (which has little graphical supporting material, most of the time), this is much faster. The course also had plenty of links to books, articles and papers on the topics covered, many which great coverage.

The course was interesting, and I've learned a lot. The thing is, one of the books they suggested – Fundamentals of Game Design, by Ernest Adams – is so good that reading the equivalent book chapter always felt better than the course lesson. And as a plus for me, it was already included in Safari, which I already subscribed to (so it is practically free).

Of course, while the book is also filled with exercises, you get no feedback from it (but the feedback from the course, if it is like the first, is just from students, not teachers or TAs). You also don't get a certificate. So keep all of that in mind. In my case, I feel the book is substantially better.

 

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Product Review

Quick Start To Unity – Course Review

Quick Start to Unity is a learning path on PluralSight/DigitalTutors that shows some of the basics of getting around in Unity and making a simple game.

There are about 3 hours of video content (although I took a couple of hours more, as I followed along in Unity and took notes).

I felt the focus was pretty good. I took it after the much longer Coursera Course, Introduction to Game Development . It doesn't cover everything from the course, but it has a nice set and several things that weren't covered in it.

In particular, there were plenty of small tips on how to get better looks (the course is apparently a bit more target toward artists). The completed project is quite simple, but looks quite nice.

Quick Start To Unit Course Final Project
Quick Start To Unit Course Final Project

What I didn't like:

  • the course is for Unity 4, and there is no information on how to make things work with Unity 5. So several times I'd have to Google how to do things. Some text on the bottom from the author with the changes would be great.
  • The video player doesn't allow speeding.

Overall, it is pretty interesting if you already have a Pluralsight subscription, or if you use their trial.