Mobile Game Design电子书

Mobile Game Design Essentials

Table of Contents

Mobile Game Design Essentials

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Operating Systems – Mobile and Otherwise

Operating systems

Mobile operating systems

Android

Google Play and Amazon Appstore

App development

Games for Android

Eclipse versus Intellij

iOS

The App Store

Development on iOS

Xcode

Using Xcode

Windows Phone

Windows Phone Store

Developing apps with Windows Phone

Developing a game for Windows Phone with XNA

Java ME

Developing games with Java ME

NetBeans

BlackBerry

The BlackBerry App World

Developing games for BlackBerry

Summary

2. The Mobile Indie Team

A matter of size

Key roles in a successful team

What it takes

Commitment

Cohesion

Software development methodologies

Discipline

Professional training

Passion for games

The roles in an indie mobile team

The game designer

Designer at work

Designer tools

The practices of game design

Academic formation and personality

No game is ever done!

The game artist

Brushes and canvas

Forms of art

2D graphic assets

3D graphic assets

Art schools and creative types

The programmer

The programmer's kit

Coding departments

Learning to be a programmer

The game tester

The tools of deconstruction

Aspects of game testing

Skills of a professional player

University of Gamestop

The game producer

Keeping things organized

Key questions of a producer

Skills for all!

Who is the producer?

The sound designer

Creating music and sound fx

Audio skills and tasks

Schools of sound production

Audio personality

Summary

3. Graphics for Mobile

Pixels and vectors

Pixels

Vectors

The graphic file formats

Raster graphics

Vector graphics

Videos in videogames

Software to create game graphics

Resolution issues with mobile games

2D graphic assets

Sprites

Backgrounds

Tiles

The parallax motion

Masking

3D graphic assets

3D models

Texturing

Materials

UV Mapping

More on textures

Baking

Animations

Designing a character for mobile

The character design process

Silhouettes

Colors for mobile

The user interface and HUD

Summary

4. Audio for Mobile

Digital sound technology

Analog versus digital

Recording and playback

Recording

The sample rate

The word length

Compression

Uncompressed

Lossless compression

Lossy compression

Playback

Types of game sounds

Dynamic audio

Adaptive audio

Interactive audio

Non-Dynamic linear sounds and music

Diegetic sounds

Adaptive

Interactive

Non-Dynamic

Non-Diegetic sounds

Adaptive

Interactive

Kinetic gestural interaction

The audio editing software

Avid Pro Tools

Sound Forge/Sonic Foundry

Audacity

Ableton Live

Designing audio for mobile games

Planning the audio in advance

Hardware limitations for mobile games audio

The role of audio in mobile games

Listening conditions for mobile games

Best practices for mobile games audio design

Scripting skills for a mobile audio designer

File compression

Looping background music

To learn more

Final advice

Summary

5. Coding Games

Main features of programming languages

Libraries

Abstraction

Implementation

Usage

Game programming

C++

Memory management

Objects

Complaints about C++

Java

Memory management

Syntax

Java for mobile – Java ME

Objective-C

Cocoa

Cocoa Touch

Xcode

Working with objects

Extending classes with categories

Protocols define messaging contracts

Values and collections

Blocks

Objective-C conventions

Getting started

HTML5

Canvas

HTML5 and Flash

Issues with HTML5

HTML5 games

Conclusions

Scripting languages

Structure of a game program

Initialization

The game loop

Termination

Conclusion

Summary

6. Mobile Game Controls

Input technology

Touchscreens

Keypads

Touchscreen gestures

Single–tap

Double–tap

Long press

Scroll

Spread and pinch

Pan

Flick

Multifinger tap

Multifinger scroll

Rotate

Input interfaces for mobile games

Built-in devices

GPS

Accelerometer

Camera

Microphone

External controllers

Gamepads

Analog sticks

Touch-enabled cases

Grip

Cabinets

Headphones

Future technologies

Eye tracking

Brainwave readers

Summary

7. Interface Design for Mobile Games

The role of the user interface

Approaching user interface design

UI in videogames

Designing the UI

Aesthetics

More on vectors and rasters

Designing icons

Best practices in UI design

Search for references

The screen flow

Functionality

Wireframes

The button size

The main screen

Test and iterate

Evergreen options

Multiple save slots

Screen rotation

Calibrations and reconfigurations

Challenges

Experiment

Summary

8. Mobile Game Engines

What engines can do

What engines can't do

Game engines

2D game engines

Torque 2D

Cocos2D

Corona SDK

3D game engines

Shiva 3D

Unity 3D

Top-quality engines

Unreal/UDK

Educational engines

GameMaker

GameSalad

Unity3D Tutorial – part 1

Tutorial part 1A – importing 3D models

Tutorial part 1B – setting up the scene

Summary

9. Prototyping

Steps in the prototyping process

Defining the prototype

Building the prototype

Testing the prototype

Fixing the prototype

Prototyping styles

Horizontal prototype

Vertical prototype

Types of prototyping

Disposable code

Your imagination

Pencil and paper

Visual prototypes

Interactive prototypes

Reusable code

Why prototype?

What to avoid

Tools

Tools for rapid prototyping

Unity3D tutorial – part 2

The player's ship

The aliens

Firing

Summary

10. Balancing, Tuning, and Polishing Mobile Games

Balancing

Symmetry

Randomization

Feedback loops

Game director

Statistics

Tuning

Tuning strategies

Difficulty settings

Global difficulty

Unity 3D tutorial – part 3

The barriers

The player's ship reprise

Refining the details

Adding a GUI

Adding audio effects

Particle system effects

Unity 3D tutorial summary

Summary

11. Mobile Game Design

The basic game design process

The dos and don'ts of game design

Dos

Don'ts

Designing mobile games

Hardware limitations

Screen size

Game controls

Audio output

File size

Processing power

Mobile design constraints

Play time

Game depth

Mobile environment

Smartphones

Single player versus multiplayer

The mobile market

Mobile gamers

Business models

Premium

Freemium

Ad supported

Hybrid

Choosing the right business model

What makes games fun

The four keys to fun – the game mechanics that drive play

Hard fun – emotions from meaningful challenges, strategies, and puzzles

Easy fun – grab attention with ambiguity, incompleteness, and detail

The people factor – create opportunities for player competition, cooperation, performance, and spectacle

Raph Koster and Roger Caillois

Summary

12. Pitching a Mobile Game

The pitch document

Importance of pitching

Game concept

References

Prototypes

Stuck?

Genre

Target audience

Key features

Target platform and competitors

Game mechanics

Control scheme and interface

Scoring system and achievements

A gameplay example

Screen flow and screens relationship

Game flow

Tech

Screenshot

Team/Designer resume

Lilypads pitch document

Concept

Genre

References

Target

Platform

Competitors

Key features

Character design

Game mechanics

Score

Virtual currency

IAP (In-App Purchase)

Achievements and leaderboards

Additional game elements

Screen flow

Game flow

Tech

Game features

Platform

The iPhone 4

Game screen study

A list of assets

Graphics

Audio

Software

Schedule and budget

Summary

Index