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21st Century Game Design (Book reference)
A book introducing a unique and thought-provoking approach to Game Design. Through a concept they call "Zen Game Design", the two authors emphasize over the fact that many game design methodologies exist, and that these methodologies are many because they suit different needs. The authors thus start form the "needs", and dedicate the first part of the book to a detailed analysis of the different player profiles. This analysis is based on a theoretical model called "Demog [...]Keywords : game design, players typology, DGD1, zen game design, psychology, methodology
Technocity (Our projects)
Technocity is a serious game released in March 2006, and freely distributed to the 600 high school and college located in the region around Toulouse City (South-West in France). The purpose of this edumarket game is to promote courses related to industrial and technical jobs towards a 15 to 18 years old audience. This title was created for the french ministry of education. This was a first experiment for the Toulouse section of french ministry of education, who wan [...]Keywords : serious game
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Game Design Demystified (Book reference)
This book is written by Jobe Makar, a veteran Flash game developer working for the ElectroTank studio, and aims to teach you how to create videogames with Macromedia Flash MX 2004. Unlike most other books on this topic, this one doesn't limit itself to explaining the source code of the examples games featured on the companion CD. While one half of the book is indeed dedicated to these examples games, the 250 remaining pages explain with great details, but easy to understand text, the working pri [...]Keywords : flash, action, programming, videogames, algorithm
Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life (Book reference)
This book presents a historical, economic and artistic analysis of Japanese video games, hoping to explain why they are so successful all around the world. The author, who is an expert of this topic, offers us a combination of detailed history (the birth of Japanese video game industry), personal analysis of games series (Mario, Final Fantasy, etc.), and interviews with legendary game designers such as Shigeru Miyamoto and Fumito Ueda. The author then explores some "japanese-specific" [...]Keywords : japan, analyse, shigeru miyamoto, fumito ueda, jrpg, akihabara, pokémon, music games
Game Architecture and Design: A New Edition (Book reference)
This 900-pages behemoth is the revised and extended edition of a book first published in 2000. It covers extensively the industrial creation of video games. The book is divided in three main parts: the design of games, project and team management, and video game software architecture design. In the first part, the authors address topics that will become the classic parts of "game design" books: game concept ideas, writing Game Design Documents, balancing, user interface, prototyping... [...]Keywords : industry, design, management, architecture, reference
Dungeons and Dreamers (Book reference)
This book focuses on the history of role-playing and adventure games made in the USA. The central theme of the book is the truly captivating story of Richard Garriott, the creator of famous rpg saga Ultima (1981-1999). The book details his path starting with his teenage years, when he discovered Dungeons & Dragons, a game that will greatly influence his first amateurs creations on the Apple II. After two years of work, he attempts to sell his first "real" game, Akalabehth (1980), b [...]Keywords : history, ultima, richard garriot, origin systems, id software, john romero, doom, texas
The Art of Interactive Design (Book reference)
This book deals with the topic of interactivity from an overall point-of-view. Its 400 pages are divided in 4 parts. The first one is dedicated to the fundamentals concepts of interactivity. The second one provides many design tips using real-world examples of successful and flawed applications interfaces. From these examples, the third part lays down a general theory of interactivity, completed by an historical perspective of the software industry in the fourth part (including the way it gather [...]Keywords : interactivity, design, theory
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Book reference)
This book is dedicated to the history of computing, but deals with the history of computer and video games too. The main topic is the birth and legacy of the "Hacker" movement: a group of talented youth people who initiated a drive for computers to be a tool available and useful to everyone. During the dawn of the 60's, in the U.S., at the famous MIT university, a group of students changed the very idea of "computing" by using one of their university's computer to create all [...]Keywords : hackers, MIT, spacewar!, apple II, steve wozniak, sierra on line, ken and roberta williams, homebrew computer club
Understanding Interactivity (Book reference)
The first (self-published) edition of a book later know as "The Art of Interactive Design". This book deals with the topic of interactivity from an overall point-of-view. Its 400 pages are divided in 4 parts. The first one is dedicated to the fundamentals concepts of interactivity. The second one provides many design tips using real-world examples of successful and flawed applications interfaces. From these examples, the third part lays down a general theory of interactivity, comp [...]Keywords : interactivity, design, theory
Minds in Play (Book reference)
This book describes a pioneering scientific experiment conducted by Yasmin Kafai in the Serious Games field. In 1994, for 6 months during 1 hour per day, she asked 4th grade students to design video games explaining the mathematical concept of "fraction" to 3rd graders. To create these games, the kids used the LOGO language they learned during the workshop. Through this experiment, the researcher observed that designing video games about "fractions" helped kids to master this [...]Keywords : serious game, constructionnisme, logo, scientific research