Building a Sample Game: From Design to Completion

Abstract

The projects included in the main sections of Chapters 1 to 10 began with simple shapes, slowly introducing characters and environments to illustrate the concepts in each chapter; those projects focused on individual behaviors and techniques (such as collision detection, object physics, lighting, and the like) but lacked the kind of structured challenges necessary for game mechanics. The projects in the “Design Considerations” sections demonstrate how to introduce the types of logical rules and challenges required to turn basic behaviors into well-formed mechanics. This chapter changes the focus to emphasize the design process from earliest conception through functional prototype, bringing together and extending the work done in earlier projects by using the characters and environments from prior chapters along with the basic idea for the “unlocking platformer” from the “Design Considerations” section of Chapter 10. As with earlier chapters, the design framework utilized here begins with a simple and flexible starting template and adds complexity incrementally and intentionally to allow the game to grow in a controlled manner.