Chapter 2. Creating Your First Game Design

Before I guide you through game-development topics in this book, I must first teach you about game design. For those starting out with developing games, this is usually the stage where they say something like "I want to make a game like Flappy Bird, Angry Birds, or Candy Crush", which might not be entirely wrong here, but this doesn't make it exactly right either. This way of thinking doesn't define the kind of gameplay they're aiming for and won't do anything, except reskinning other games that are already published.

In this chapter, you're going to learn:

• What makes a game

• The elements of game design and drawing your game flow

• Game mechanics

Defining a game

So, let's start with a simple question: what is a game? You might have your own definition, or you might have read other people's description of it. There are a lot of definitions of what a game is by some popular figures; a few of them are listed next.

Greg Costikyan defines a game as follows:

"A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal."

According to Raph Koster, a game is defined as follows:

"Playing a game is the act of solving statistically varied challenge situations presented by an opponent who may or may not be algorithmic within a framework that is a defined systemic model."

Sid Meier defines a game as follows:

"A game is a series of interesting choices."

However, in this book, we'll use my definition of what a game is.

"A game is a continuous loop of challenges and rewards."

While the loop continues, the game will keep on giving rewards to the player. The game can...

Drawing the flow of the game

All games have a certain flow; this defines what the players can do in a certain part of the game. It is called a game-screen flow diagram. A game-screen flow is an overall flow of the game that shows everything the player can do in the game. An example of a game-screen flow diagram is as follows:

The preceding diagram is a flowchart that represents the flow of a game from start to finish.

It might look confusing at first, so let me walk you through it.

1. Every diagram starts at the... Start node (surprise!), and the Start node always branches out into one screen, and never more than one.

2. The first screen is what is presented to the player for the first time; in our previous diagram, it is the title screen, but you can show other screens if you want (an intro animation, maybe?).

3. After that, we are presented with a question: does the player click on the quit button or not? If yes, then the game quits; if not, then the game still continues.

   Note

   This node is called the...

Making game mechanics

After defining the theme, making winning and losing conditions, and drawing our general flow diagram, now is the time to create the core part of our game design: game mechanics.

Game mechanics define what the players do inside the main gameplay screen, which is shown in the preceding diagram. This is where the players spend most of their time and have fun in your game, and because of this, it is the most important part of game design.

In LeBlanc's MDA design method, mechanics refers to the individual actions the player can take, such as jumping, shooting, dragging puzzle pieces, picking up objects, placing objects, and more (there are hundreds of game mechanics that can be combined in any number of ways to make the next component, dynamics).

Creating game rules

The first step in making game mechanics is to make game rules. Game rules are special rules in your game that might or might not be written in other games. Game rules tell your players what they can or can't do in...

More references for game design

Most of the things, if not all, that I taught you here came from my personal experience. There are a lot of other experts out there in the field of game design; they have their own opinions regarding game design, which I recommend you to look into. I will add some references in this part for you to read.

Game-design template

There is a good game-design template from Bob Bates' book, titled Game Design: Second Edition. I will include an example outline (taken from Bates' text, with the non-applicable or complicated parts removed):

• Game Name

• Executive Summary

  • High Concept (elevator pitch/"core")

  • Hook (what makes the game unique and special)

  • Genre

  • Visual Style

• Core Gameplay

  • List each mechanic the player will do

• Project Scope

  • Number of Characters (if there are more than one)

  • Number of Levels/Missions/Puzzles

  • Number of Enemies (if applicable)

  • Number of Weapons (if applicable)

  • Etc.

• Platforms being Published On

• Menu Diagrams

  • Game Screen Flow Diagram (this is what I explained as "general...

Game-design books

There are a lot of good game books out there; I will only list some of them here for you to read:

• Challenges For Game Designers at http://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X

• Game Design at http://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Bob-Bates/dp/1592004938

• Level Up! The Guide To Great Video Game Design at http://www.amazon.com/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X

• A Theory of Fun for Game Design at http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210/ref=pd_sim_b_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=0RF5R20HCRGDSR4JEY0N

• Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide To Virtual Sensation at http://www.amazon.com/Game-Feel-Designers-Sensation-Kaufmann/dp/0123743281

Summary

In this chapter, you learned about my definition of game and how to make our game's challenges and rewards. You learned how to create a general game flow and a main game flow, and you learned about game mechanics. You also learned about two definitions of fun and how to incorporate them into our game.

Now that you know how to make a game design, it is time to make use of this new information by making our first Construct 2 game. We will start by making a simple game that everyone knows: Flappy Bird.