After deciding that game designers have more fun, Scott Rogers embarked on an eighteen- (and counting) year career creating video games, including Sony's God of War™, Capcom's Maximo: Ghosts to Glory and its sequel Maximo vs. Army of Zin, Namco's Pac-Man World and THQ's Darksiders and Drawn to Life series. He is currently an Imagineer for Walt Disney Imagineering.

• Introduction Swipe This Book! 1Some Possible Reasons You Picked Up Swipe This! 2Who is This Book For? 2         Working Video Game Professionals 3Future Video Game Designers 4Students of Game Design 5People Who Love Video Games 6Why Another Book on Game Design? 7What You Won’t Find in This Book 7Very Deep Theory 8The Complete History of Video Games 8How to Program Video Games 9How to Create Video Game Art 9Lameness 9What You Will Find in This Book 9Practical Information 10Good News! 11Chapter 1 Hardware Wars 13Touch and Go! 18More Things to Be Touchy About 20Game On! 21Destroy All Humans! 28Developer Interview 1 Paul O’Connor 29Chapter 2 Clown-On-A-Unicycle 33Let’s Get High (Concept) 35Yes, But is It a Game? 39Really Quick Guide to the One-Sheet 40Form Follows Function 41Function Follows Form 42Length Matters 43The Average Play Session Will Last 2 to 5 Minutes 45The Overall Game Length Should Only Be a Few Hours 45Develop Gameplay in Terms of Depth, Not Length 48Emphasize Repeatability Over Content 48Create Natural Play Breaks Over the Course of the Game 49Emergent Eschmergent 49I Want to Be Rich and Powerful 51Game Design Spotlight 1 Fruit Ninja HD 53Chapter 3 Finger Fu! 57The Fabulous Folio of Facile Fingering 60You Only Have Two (to Four) Fingers 68Hands Solo 70Virtual Joysticks Suck … or Do They? 75Hands Get Their Revenge 77Developer Interview 2 Andy Ashcraft 81Chapter 4 GenreBusters 85Making a Name 91Games Need Story … or Do They? 94Unreliable Narrators 106Game Design Spotlight 2 Helsing’s Fire 107Chapter 5 Puzzlings 111Superior Logic 115The Problem with Math 118Don’t Be Difficult 121Physics: It’s for the Birds 123Let’s Get Wet 127Do You See What I See? 128Hiding in Plain Sight 131Word Up 133And the Solution is … 135Developer Interview 3 Erin Reynolds 137Chapter 6 Arcade Crazy 141The “Good Ol’ Days” 143Games? I’ll Give You Games! 147A-mazing Games 151Cuteness Counts 152The First Rule of Fighting Games … 155Get on the Ball 159Baby, You Can Drive My iPhone 162Beat It, Kid 165Everything New is Old Again 166Game Design Spotlight 3 Where’s My Water? 171Chapter 7 Action Guy 175Think Like an Artist 177The Metrics System 179Didn’t We Already Talk about Character? 182World Building for Fun and Profit 183What’s with All the Zombies? 189How to Design an Enemy in Six Easy Steps 190Fighting for Cash and Glory! 194Pain, Pain, Go Away, Come Again Some Other Day 201Putting the “Ack” in “Feedback15” 202The Only Good Player is a Dead One 203Developer Interview 4 Blade Olsen 205Chapter 8 DoodleCat 209Get to the Point 210Finger Pointers 212The Artist’s Way 214A Line on Fun 217Meow Meow Meow 220Game Design Spotlight 4 Jetpack Joyride 223Chapter 9 Casual Fryday 227Board Games 229Card Games 232Real Time Strategy Games 234How to Create a Tech Tree 236Tower Defense Games 238God Games 241Sports Games 246RPGs and MORPGs 249The Crown Jewel of Casual 253To Clone or Not to Clone? 255Developer Interview 5 Sam Rosenthal 257Chapter 10 The New Genres 261Micro-games 263Gesture Games 264The Art of Art 266Tilt Games 268Endless Runners 269Augmented Reality 276Now is the Future! 280Game Design Spotlight 5 No, Human 281Developer Interview 6 Andy Reeves 285Chapter 11 Make Your Own Star Wars 289How to Start 292Diversion #1: How to Storyboard Gameplay 293Diversion #2: A Word About Title Screens 296Team Building 101 300Sound Advice 304The Three -ions 305Diversion #3: Where to Find Teammates 305RadGame-GDDFirstDraft-20XX0614-SR.doc 308Production Pointers 309The Topic No One Likes Talking About 310Ship It! 314Marketing Your Game 315You Can Make a Game, But Can You Do the Paperwork? (Submitting Your Game) 317Diversion #4: How to Design an Icon 318Now Where Were We? 320Post-Release Strategies 320What to Do for an Encore? 321Game Design Spotlight 6 Angry Birds 323App-pendix 1 The Class of 2008 329Arcade Games 329Breaker Games 331Classic Games 332Puzzle Games 333Racing Games 335Rolling Games 335The Others 336App-pendix 2 Touchscreen Template 337App-pendix 3 Gameplay Storyboarding Template 339App-pendix 4 The Game Designer’s Checklist 341Afterword 343Index 345