(PUDG) Programs Used to Design Games Lesson

Programs Used to Design Games

What do you need to know to design a game? You need to know your audience and what makes a game fun to play for them. People have different motives for playing games. Games are usually designed to provide satisfaction to players based on what motivates them.

Gamification is the concept of applying game design techniques to engage and motivate the player.

Motives for Playing Games

  • Achievement - The player receives a reward or badge for achieving a goal.
  • Thrill - The player experiences something exciting that is risky (ski down a mountain, race a fast car).
  • Quest - The player searches for something or gains new knowledge or skills.
  • Competition - The player competes to reach a goal or win.
  • Learning - The player learns new information or how to do something new.
  • Challenge - The player progresses through different levels to achieve a goal that becomes more difficult as you go along.
  • Competition - The player is in competition to defeat others.
  • Social Interaction - The player is interacting with others.

You need to plan out your game through a game design process.  Game Design is the process of taking the idea for a game and developing the story, game play and game mechanics.  

Game Design Elements

Game Design Elements

Game Concept

Decide what type of game you want to create. Start with a new idea or a modification to an existing concept.  Consider the audience and the type of motivational strategy for your game.

Storyline

The story consists of characters, setting and plot. Who, what, when, where, how. The underlying plot defines the flow of the game.

 

Describe the main objective of the game, problem or challenges involved in the achievement of that objective, and the resources available for the players to help achieve that objective, how to end the game.

Gameplay

The various elements the player interacts with during the game. This include the user interface, visual, audio, objects and characters.

  1. List and describe the characters and what they will do.
  2. Describe each mission or level.
  3. What objects, scripts and sounds will be needed?        

 

Game Mechanics

This is how the game operates. It includes the rules, the challenges, the activities a player will perform, the goals of the game and how to win and lose.  

What is the player doing in the game?

  1. What are the rules of the game?
  2. What goals will the player achieve?
  3. What activities will the player perform?
  4. How does a player win?

Storyboarding

After you have designed your game, one of the best ways to see it is to storyboard it. Storyboarding is creating a sequence of drawings, images or descriptions that shows the levels of the game or the different scenes and goals. Each storyboard should include a paragraph or two to describe what is going on. It should be done before making a game and after developing the idea and writing the game script. A storyboard usually has six frames; each frame represents a different level of the game, and the final frame is the goal. Storyboards can be sketched and can be messy. Storyboard sketches are for getting down on paper the general flow of the game before programming.  

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