| Introduction | p. xvii |
| Game Design | |
| First Concept | p. 3 |
| The Shock Of The New | p. 3 |
| Having The Idea | p. 4 |
| Shaping The Idea | p. 8 |
| The Treatment | p. 11 |
| Taking Stock | p. 12 |
| Getting It Down | p. 13 |
| Feasibility | p. 13 |
| Core Design | p. 19 |
| What Is A Game? | p. 19 |
| Games Aren't Everything | p. 21 |
| Games Mean Gameplay | p. 22 |
| Creating The Game Spec | p. 24 |
| Example Game Spec | p. 32 |
| Gameplay | p. 37 |
| What Is Gameplay? | p. 38 |
| Implementing Gameplay | p. 38 |
| Interactivity | p. 53 |
| Detailed Design | p. 59 |
| The Designer's Role | p. 59 |
| Design Documentation | p. 63 |
| Using The Design Documents | p. 64 |
| Fitting Design To Development | p. 67 |
| Why Use Documents At All? | p. 71 |
| Game Balance | p. 73 |
| Player/Player Balance | p. 74 |
| Player/Gameplay Balance | p. 77 |
| Gameplay/Gameplay Balance | p. 81 |
| A Game Balance Checklist | p. 97 |
| Look And Feel | p. 101 |
| Ambience | p. 101 |
| Interface | p. 106 |
| Storytelling | p. 109 |
| The Sum Of The Parts | p. 120 |
| Wrapping Up | p. 121 |
| The Professionals | p. 122 |
| The Future Of Game Design | p. 141 |
| The Necessity Of Design | p. 141 |
| Essentials Of Game Design | p. 145 |
| The Future Of Design | p. 148 |
| The Future Of Games | p. 151 |
| The Way Forward | p. 159 |
| Team Building And Management | |
| Current Methods Of Team Management | p. 163 |
| The Current Development Model | p. 163 |
| Roles And Divisions | p. 179 |
| Assigning Personnel | p. 179 |
| Improving Morale And The Working Environment | p. 187 |
| Spreading The Risk | p. 194 |
| The Software Factory | p. 195 |
| What Is A Software Factory? | p. 195 |
| Why Use A Software Factory? | p. 197 |
| Organizing A Software Factory | p. 202 |
| Applying The Software Factory Structure And Methodology | p. 214 |
| The Suitability Of A Software Factory | p. 219 |
| The Final Word | p. 219 |
| Milestones And Deadlines | p. 221 |
| How Milestones Currently Work | p. 222 |
| Fuzzy Milestones | p. 225 |
| Milestones And Mini-Milestones | p. 227 |
| When To Use Milestones | p. 228 |
| Making Your Milestones Accurate | p. 228 |
| Defining Milestones | p. 238 |
| Procedures And "Process" | p. 249 |
| Procedures | p. 250 |
| "Process" | p. 261 |
| Procedures: Where To Use Them? | p. 267 |
| Source Control And Code Reviews: A Synergy | p. 272 |
| The Importance Of Information Transmission | p. 277 |
| Troubleshooting | p. 285 |
| Risks | p. 290 |
| The Future Of The Industry | p. 323 |
| The State Of The Industry | p. 324 |
| The New Model Developers | p. 334 |
| The Online Revolution | p. 339 |
| Survival of the Fittest | p. 341 |
| Game Architecture | |
| Current Development Methods | p. 345 |
| The History Of Development Techniques | p. 347 |
| The Present Day | p. 360 |
| Initial Design | p. 369 |
| The Beginning | p. 371 |
| Hardware Abstraction | p. 372 |
| The Problem Domain | p. 387 |
| Thinking In Tokens | p. 389 |
| Use Of Technology | p. 413 |
| The State Of The Art | p. 416 |
| Blue-Sky Research | p. 427 |
| Reinventing The Wheel | p. 438 |
| Use Of Object Technology | p. 443 |
| Building Blocks | p. 451 |
| Reusability In Software | p. 453 |
| Initial Architecture Design | p. 495 |
| The Birth Of An Architecture | p. 496 |
| The Tier System | p. 503 |
| Architecture Design | p. 513 |
| Development | p. 521 |
| The Development Process | p. 522 |
| Code Quality | p. 525 |
| Coding Priorities | p. 546 |
| Debugging And Module Completion | p. 550 |
| The Seven Golden Gambits And The Three Lead Balloons | p. 557 |
| The Three Lead Balloons | p. 561 |
| The Run-Up To Release | p. 563 |
| Late Evaluation | p. 564 |
| Late Localization | p. 575 |
| Demos | p. 577 |
| Playtesting | p. 579 |
| Focus Groups | p. 582 |
| The Web Site | p. 583 |
| Getting Ready For The Gold Master | p. 584 |
| Patches | p. 585 |
| Postmortem | p. 589 |
| Team Dynamics | p. 591 |
| Concept | p. 594 |
| Development | p. 602 |
| Business Aspects | p. 606 |
| The Postmortem Postmortem | p. 608 |
| The Future Of Game Development | p. 609 |
| Development In Context | p. 610 |
| Future Development | p. 614 |
| Small Is Beautiful Too | p. 621 |
| Building The Team Of The Future | p. 622 |
| New Directions In Development | p. 627 |
| The Shape Of Things To Come? | p. 634 |
| Appendixes | |
| Sample Game Design Documents | p. 639 |
| Bibliography And References | p. 723 |
| Glossary | p. 727 |
| Index | p. 729 |
| Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved. |