Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C#

Master the Unity Game Engine to Design and Develop Games for Web, Mobile, Windows, macOS, and More!

If you want to design and develop games, there’s no substitute for strong hands-on experience with modern techniques and tools—and that is exactly what this book provides. The first edition was frequently the top-selling game design book on Amazon, with more than 70% of the reviews being 5 stars. In a testament to the iterative process of design, this new edition includes hundreds of improvements throughout the text, all designed to make the book easier to understand and even more useful. This book was written with Unity 2017; the book.prototools.net website will cover changes for later versions of the software.

Award-winning game designer and professor Jeremy Gibson Bond has spent more than a decade teaching game design and building great games. In that time, his most successful students have been those who combine knowledge of three critical disciplines: game design theory, rapid iterative prototyping, and practical programming. In this book, Bond distills the most important aspects of all three disciplines into one place.

Part I: Game Design and Paper Prototyping
• The Layered Tetrad framework: a synthesis of 50 years of game design theory
• Proven practices for brainstorming and refining game designs through the iterative process of design
• Methods and tools to manage game projects and small teams
• Processes to make playtesting and feedback easier

Part II: Digital Prototyping with Unity and C#
• Chapters that guide you through learning C# the right way
• Instruction that takes you from no prior programming knowledge through object-oriented programming
• Deep exploration of Unity, today’s most popular game engine on both macOS and Windows
• Methods for understanding and debugging code issues you encounter

Part III: Game Prototype Examples and Tutorials
• In-depth tutorials for seven different game prototypes, including a simple action game, a space shooter, a solitaire card game, a word game, and a top-down adventure
• Instructions to compile these games for PC, web, or any of the dozens of other release platforms supported by Unity
• Improved structure and layout that makes the steps of each tutorial easier to follow
• A completely new Dungeon Delver prototype not present in the first edition

P1 Game Design and Paper Prototyping
0 Introduction
1 Thinking Like a Designer
2 Game Analysis Lexicons
3 The Layered Tetrad
4 Acting Like a Designer
5 Design Goals
6 The Inscribed Layer
7 The Dynamic Layer
8 The Cultural Layer
9 Paper Prototyping and Iteration
10 Playtesting and Usability Testing
11 Math & Game Balance
12 Puzzle Design
13 Guiding the Player
14 The Digital Game Industry
15 The Agile Development Prototyping Mentality
P2 Digital Prototyping
16 Thinking in Digital Systems
17 Introducing our Development Environment: Unity
18 Introducing our Language: C#
19 Your First Program: Hello World
20 Debugging
21 Variables and Components
22 Boolean Operations and Conditionals
23 Loops
24 Lists and Arrays
25 Functions and Parameters
26 Classes
27 Object-Oriented Thinking
P3 Game Prototype Examples and Tutorials
28 Prototype 1: Apple Picker
29 Prototype 2: Mission Demolition
30 Prototype 3: Space SHMUP
31 Prototype 4: Prospector Solitaire
32 Prototype 5: Bartok
33 Prototype 6: Word Game
34 Prototype 7: QuickSnap
35 Prototype 8: Omega Mage
P4 Appendices
36 Standard Project Setup Procedure
37 Useful Concepts Reference
38 Online References