An investigation into computer game interfaces, both naturalistic and symbolic, and the distinction between gameworlds and other kinds of fictional worlds. Computer games usually take one of two approaches to presenting game information to players. A game might offer information naturalistically, as part of the game's imaginary universe; or it might augment the world of the game with overlays, symbols, and menus. In this book, Kristine Jørgensen investigates both kinds of gameworld interfaces. She shows that although the naturalistic approach may appear more integral to the imaginary world of the game, both the invisible and visible interfaces effectively present information that players need in order to interact with the game and its rules. The symbolic, less naturalistic approach would seem to conflict with the idea of a coherent, autonomous fictional universe; but, Jørgensen argues, gameworlds are not governed by the pursuit of fictional coherence but by the logics of game mechanics. This is characteristic of gameworlds and distinguishes them from other traditional fictional worlds. Jørgensen investigates gameworld interfaces from the perspectives of both game designers and players. She draws on interviews with the design teams of Harmonix Music (producer of Rock Band and other music games) and Turbine Inc. (producer of such massively multiplayer online games as Lord of the Rings Online), many hours of gameplay, and extensive interviews and observations of players. The player studies focus on four games representing different genres: Crysis, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberian Wars, The Sims 2, and Diablo 2. Finally, she presents a theory of game user interfaces and considers the implications of this theory for game design.

From the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and Farsighted Forget everything you’ve ever read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In this provocative, unfailingly intelligent, thoroughly researched, and surprisingly convincing big idea book, Steven Johnson draws from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and media theory to argue that the pop culture we soak in every day—from Lord of the Rings to Grand Theft Auto to The Simpsons—has been growing more sophisticated with each passing year, and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are actually making our minds measurably sharper. After reading Everything Bad is Good for You, you will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again. With a new afterword by the author.

An introduction to the topic of user interface design, this text discusses player interface design conventions and looks at the effects of platform, genre, and design goals related to electronic games.

"Game Interface Design" reveals design principles and techniques that enable the reader to create aesthetic and easy to use, front-end menus and in-game interfaces. The reader learns how to blend smooth functionality with stunning visuals. Standards and goals for measuring the success of an interface are presented and explained. A clear understanding of what makes a good interface can help game designers in their quest for the ultimate interface design. This book discusses principles and ideas that help the reader to design elegant interfaces. Many visual examples are provided to clearly illustrate these principles. Real world tutorials are provided to show how these principles can be applied in an actual video game interface

Covering the complex topic of game interface design, GAME DEVELOPMENT ESSENTIALS: GAME INTERFACE DESIGN, International Edition is back with an all new Second Edition. This comprehensive introductory text immerses students in the foundation, theory, and practice of interface creation, while including interviews with working professionals, examples from every gaming era and many genres, and hundreds of screenshots from contemporary games. Also featured are an expanded practice section with a wide variety of flowcharts and design examples, coverage of interface design for mobile and motion-sensing devices, social networking games, and much more. Students will explore everything from the history of game interface design and basic design theories to practical strategies for creating a winning, interactive interface.

Game design is a sibling discipline to software and Web design, but they're siblings that grew up in different houses. They have much more in common than their perceived distinction typically suggests, and user experience practitioners can realize enormous benefit by exploiting the solutions that games have found to the real problems of design. This book will show you how.

This volume gathers high-quality papers from the 37th Graphics Interface conference. These peer-reviewed papers cover advances in interactive systems, human computer interaction, and graphics. Topics include shading and rendering, geometric modeling and meshing, simulation, image-based rendering, image synthesis and realism, medical visualization, scientific visualization, computer animation, real-time rendering, non-photorealistic rendering, virtual reality, interaction techniques, computer-supported cooperative work, human interface devices, augmented reality, data and information visualization, multimedia, mobile computing, haptic and tangible interfaces, affective interfaces, aesthetic design, and perception.

Anyone can master the fundamentals of game design - no technological expertise is necessary. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality videogames. Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses - one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer - and will understand how to do it.

These days people are looking to the Internet for its gaming possibilities. Whether it's real-time role-playing you're after with 30,000 of your closest friends, or just a solitary round of crazy golf, the most versatile piece of web animation software just made itself more approachable for designing games! This book takes us deep, deep down into the realms of game design, and hunts out the features that are really going to evolve your Flash skills into full-on game wizardry. We are going to discuss what makes a good game, and what makes a great game. We grapple with the concepts of 3D and how to get Flash to produce cutting-edge game environments, while keeping our sensible shoes on by reducing those file sizes and download times. We conduct a battle of wits with artificial intelligence, and have a good crash around with some collision detection in platform games. All in all, we are pushing Flash to its breaking point to see what lies beyond. The Studio series assumes you already know your way around Flash's basics, and it aims to boost your knowledge and help you master some advanced techniques. Flash 5 Games Studio draws its inspiration from the full spectrum of Flash's capabilities. Amongst other things, it explores: Refining methods of graphic creation to speed up game performance Using ActionScript techniques for player control and environmental reactions Mastering the sound capabilities with interactive soundtracks Using data packets and sockets to develop multiplayer games What you’ll learnWho this book is for If you want to turn your open-ended Flash animations into challenging, high-quality games, then this is the book for you. You will benefit from it if you are: A Flash user who wants to get comfortable with the most important and useful ActionScript commands A Flash user who wants to push the software to the edge of its capabilities, and stretch your knowledge base to its limit A Flash-savvy game designer who wants to venture into the realms of web-based gaming

The biggest challenge facing many game programmers is completing their game. Most game projects fizzle out, overwhelmed by the complexity of their own code. Game Programming Patterns tackles that exact problem. Based on years of experience in shipped AAA titles, this book collects proven patterns to untangle and optimize your game, organized as independent recipes so you can pick just the patterns you need. You will learn how to write a robust game loop, how to organize your entities using components, and take advantage of the CPUs cache to improve your performance. You'll dive deep into how scripting engines encode behavior, how quadtrees and other spatial partitions optimize your engine, and how other classic design patterns can be used in games.