To create a great video game, you must start with a solid game design: A well-designed game is easier to build, more entertaining, and has a better chance of succeeding in the marketplace. Here to teach you the essential skills of player-centric game design is one of the industry's leading authorities, who offers a first-hand look into the process, from initial concept to final tuning. Now in its second edition, this updated classic reference by Ernest Adams offers a complete and practical approach to game design, and includes material on concept development, gameplay design, core mechanics, user interfaces, storytelling, and balancing. In an easy-to-follow approach, Adams analyzes the specific design challenges of all the major game genres and shows you how to apply the principles of game design to each one. You'll learn how to: * Define the challenges and actions at the heart of the gameplay. * Write a high-concept document, a treatment, and a full design script. * Understand the essentials of user interface design and how to define a game's look and feel. * Design for a variety of input mechanisms, including the Wii controller and multi-touch iPhone. * Construct a game's core mechanics and flow of resources (money, points, ammunition, and more). * Develop appealing stories, game characters, and worlds that players will want to visit, including persistent worlds. * Work on design problems with engaging end-of-chapter exercises, design worksheets, and case studies. * Make your game accessible to broader audiences such as children, adult women, people with disabilities, and casual players. "Ernest Adams provides encyclopedic coverage of process and design issues for every aspect of game design, expressed as practical lessons that can be immediately applied to a design in-progress. He offers the best framework I've seen for thinking about the relationships between core mechanics, gameplay, and player-one that I've found useful for both teaching and research." - Michael Mateas, University of California at Santa Cruz, co-creator of Facade

Ernest Adams,是一位美国游戏设计顾问,现在在英国的International Hobo游戏设计小组工作。除了顾问工作,他还参加游戏研讨会。他是各种会议和大学里非常受欢迎的发言人。Adams先生从1989年就开始从事交互式娱乐产业并在1994年成立了国际游戏开发者协会 (International Game Developer’s Association)。他最近在Bullfrog Productions作为首席设计师工作,而在那以前的几年里,他是Electronic Arts的Madden。NFL Football产品生产线的音频/视频制片人。在他的早期生涯中,他是一位软件工程师,已经为从IBM 360主机到Sony Playstation 2开发了在线、计算机和控制台游戏。Adams先生是其他两本书的作者,同时还是《Gamesutra》开发者网络杂志的“Designer’s Notebook”系列专栏的作家。他的个人网站是www.designersnotebook.com。

Andrew Rollings (非常成功的《Game Architecture and Design》和《Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design》的合著者) 是伦敦帝国学院和Bristol大学的物理学学士,他从1995年就从事横跨游戏业和金融业的技术顾问工作。你可以在www.hiive.corn找到他。