Game Design: Theory & Practice- P20


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Game Design: Theory & Practice- P20

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  1. 548 Glossary Beta: The state games reach after passing through Alpha, and the last step before a game is published or otherwise released to the public. In Beta, changes made to a game are supposed to be strictly limited to bug fixes. Some developers define Beta to be when they first have what they consider to be a release candidate. See also Alpha and Release Candidate. Bible: Used in the gaming industry to refer to various reference materials used during a game’s development. See Art Bible and Story Bible. Boss Monster: An enemy in a game, though not necessarily a “monster” per se, which is much larger or simply more difficult to defeat than the other opponents in the game. Typically boss monsters are placed at the end of levels and provide a climax for Y that level’s gameplay. FL ’Bot: Short for “robot,” this refers to artificial intelligence agents that are designed to appear to play similarly to humans, typically designed to work in first-person shooter death-match games. Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament both feature ’bots as the AM player’s only opposition in the single-player game. BSP: Short for Binary Space Partition. A method for storing and rendering 3D space which involves dividing the world into a tree of space partitions, most famously used in TE id Software’s games Doom and Quake. Builder Games: One term used to describe games in which the player is responsible for building lasting structures in the game-world. In a sense, in builder games, the play- ers are responsible for the level design. Examples of this type of game are SimCity, Civilization, RollerCoaster Tycoon, and The Sims. Burn Rate: The amount of money a company, typically a developer, spends in a month to keep itself in business. This typically includes all of the employees’ salaries, rent, utilities, and other persistent expenses. Sometimes publishers will try to fund a developer only to the extent of its burn rate, so that the developer does not have any spare cash and remains forever beholden to the publisher. Candidate: See Release Candidate. Capture the Flag: A game involving two teams, both of which have a flag. The flag is kept at a specific location and possibly guarded, while the players on both teams try to grab the other team’s flag through stealth or brute force. In computer games, this is often a game variant offered in first-person shooter multi-player cooperative games, such as Quake or Unreal. Choke-Point: A point in a game past which a player can progress only by passing through a particular area, completing a particular puzzle, or defeating a particular mon- ster. Often the areas preceding and following a choke-point allow the player more freedom of play, while the choke-point presents a task the player absolutely must accomplish before proceeding. Team-Fly®
  2. Glossary 549 Classic Arcade Game: Does not necessarily mean a game that is a classic, but any game which was released during the early period of arcade games or which exhibits the traits typical of those games. Classic arcade games include simple, single-screen-player games such as Space Invaders, Centipede, Robotron 2084, or Pac-Man. Classic arcade game is defined more fully in Chapter 4. See also Arcade Game. Code: When used in reference to games, code is the lines of text that programmers enter into the computer and which the computer then compiles into the functional game. A talented programmer is sometimes referred to as a code-jockey. Color: Beyond the obvious definition, in terms of game design this may also refer to the specific content and setting of a game. Monopoly, for instance, includes the street names of Atlantic City and a depression era real-estate mogul theme as a means of pro- viding color. Color is separate from the gameplay itself. Concept Document: Also known as a pitch document. This is a short document that includes text and concept sketches and that is used to initially sell the idea of a project to a publisher or other financier. A concept document gives the reader an idea of what the game will involve without including sufficient detail to actually develop the game. If accepted, the concept document is usually expanded into the design document. Concept Sketch: A sketch of a particular game art asset which is used to show some- one what the art will look like, approximately, before that graphic or model is actually created. May also be a sketch of a scene from the game as it will appear once the game is functional. Creative Services: A deceptively titled wing of the publisher which is typically in charge of creating the box art and other advertisements and logos for a game. Critical Path: The path that the player is expected and encouraged to follow when moving through a game or a particular level. Somewhat reminiscent of the yellow brick road in The Wizard of Oz. CRPG: A computer version of a role-playing game. See also Role-Playing Game. CTF: Typically refers to Capture the Flag multi-player games, though it may also refer to Valve Software’s Classic Team Fortress game. See Capture the Flag. Cut-Scene: A non-interactive portion of a game typically used to communicate to the player information about the game’s story line, sometimes involving pre-rendered or live action full-motion video, other times using the game’s real-time graphics engine. Cut-scenes often come between levels in a game, and are sometimes used as rewards for the player having finished a particularly challenging portion of the game. Death March: When a development team, particularly the programmers, works every waking moment on a project for a long period of time, typically trying to make an unachievable deadline of some sort. Often the death march is entered into thinking it will be over soon enough, but it then drags on long beyond what anyone thought possible.
  3. 550 Glossary Death-Match: A multi-player game in which the players’ only goals are to kill each other. Usually refers to games of that sort in first-person shooters such as Doom, Unreal, or Duke Nukem 3D. Design Document: The textual reference used in developing a game which attempts to describe in detail every important aspect of the game’s design. Sometimes referred to as the Functional Specification. Described more completely in Chapter 17, “The Design Document.” DM: Depending on context, see Dungeon Master or Death-Match. Dungeon Master: The term for the Game Master used in conjunction with Dungeons & Dragons games. See Game Master. Engine: The core code that handles the most basic functionality of the game, but not including the code which governs specific gameplay functionality. Sometimes the engine is split up into the rendering engine, the sound engine, the behavior engine, and so forth. Each of these components can be considered to be part of the game’s engine as a whole. Engines are typically more general than a particular game, which allows them to be reused for multiple different projects. However, some developers use the term Engine to refer to the entirety of a game’s source code. For example, id Software has licensed their Quake engine for use in a broad range of games, from Half-Life to Sol- dier of Fortune to Heavy Metal: FAKK 2. Finite State Machine: See State-Based AI. First-Person Shooter: The type of game exemplified by Doom, Half-Life, Unreal, Marathon, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3D. In first-person shooters, the player’s perspec- tive of the world is from the first person and her objective is to shoot everything in sight, though some first-person shooters offer some subtle variations on this goal. Flight Simulator: Often shortened to flight sim, this is a type of game which attempts to model the flight of a real-world aircraft. The amount of realism involved varies from game to game; some games are extremely realistic and difficult, while oth- ers prevent the player from crashing entirely. Examples include Microsoft Flight Simulator, F-15 Strike Eagle, Flight Unlimited, and Hellcats Over the Pacific. FMV: See Full-Motion Video. Focus: A brief, three- to five-sentence description of the most important concepts guiding a game’s development. Described in detail in Chapter 5, “Focus.” FPS: Depending on the context, this may refer to the first-person shooter genre of games or to the frames per second that the game’s engine is currently rendering. See First-Person Shooter. FSM: Stands for finite state machine. See State-Based AI. Full-Motion Video: Any non-real-time graphics in a game which are displayed quickly in a sequential order to create a movie-like effect. Full-motion video can be of
  4. Glossary 551 live actors, computer-generated environments, or a combination of the two. Functional Specification: The sister document to the Technical Specification, in that it describes how the game will function from the user’s perspective, as opposed to how the programmer will implement that functionality. In game development, typically referred to as the Design Document. See also Design Document. Fuzzy Logic: A type of AI that introduces some degree of randomness into the deci- sion making process. This means that, given the exact same inputs, an AI agent will make different decisions based on chance. Game: The Oxford Universal Dictionary includes a number of definitions for “game.” The definition we are most interested in for this book reads as follows: “A diversion of the nature of a contest, played according to rules, and decided by superior skill, strength, or good fortune.” To rephrase, a game presents an entertaining challenge to the player or players, a challenge which the player or players can understand and may be able to succeed at using their wits, dexterity, luck, or some combination thereof. To expand, in order for that challenge to be meaningful, the player must be presented with a number of interesting choices for how to succeed at the game, and those choices must be non-trivial. And in order for the challenge to be truly meaningful, the game must define the criterion for success. This excludes “software toys” such as SimCity from being games. Of course, one could write an entire book about the nature of a game, but this is not that book. Game Design: The game design establishes the shape and form of the gameplay in a game. The game design may be communicated through a design document, or it may only exist in the head of the implementors of the game. See also Gameplay. Game Designer: The game designer is the person on a project who is responsible for establishing the form of the gameplay through the game design. See also Gameplay and Game Design. Game Engine: See Engine. Game Flow: The chain of events that make up the playing of a given game. A game can be said to flow between its action, exploration, puzzle-solving, and storytelling components. The proportional amount of time spent in each of these components and the pace at which the game takes place contributes to its overall flow. Game Master: In a pen and paper role-playing game, the game master is the player who governs the actions of all of the other players in the game-world. The game master often has also dreamt up the adventures that the players are going on, and continues to dynamically create this story as the players navigate through it. Game Mechanic: A specific way in which a part of the gameplay is implemented. For instance, the mechanic for doing an attack-jump in Crash Bandicoot is to hold down the “down” or “crouch” button while in mid-jump. The mechanic for sending a unit to a new location in WarCraft is to click on the unit in question with the left mouse
  5. 552 Glossary button, move the pointer to the desired position on the map, and then to click there with the right mouse button. The gameplay as a whole is made up of a number of different game mechanics combined together. Gameplay: The gameplay is the component that distinguishes games from all other artistic mediums. The gameplay defines how the player is able to interact with the game-world and how that game-world will react to his actions. One could consider the gameplay to be the degree and nature of a game’s interactivity. Of course many differ- ent people have different definitions for gameplay, but as far as this book is concerned, gameplay does not include the game’s story, graphics, sound, or music. This is easy to understand if one recalls that gameplay is what separates games from other artistic mediums; each of these components is found in literature, film, or theater. Gameplay also does not include the code used to make the game run, the game’s engine, though that engine does necessarily implement the gameplay. The gameplay, however, could be implemented using a completely different engine while remaining identical. Game-World: This is the space in which a game takes place. In a board game such as The Settlers of Catan, the game-world is represented by the board the game takes place on. For a sports game, the game-world is the real-world but is limited to the extent of the field the game is played on. For a role-playing game, the game-world is maintained within the imaginations of the game master and the players. For a computer game, this is a “virtual” space which is stored in the computer’s memory and which the players can view via the computer screen. The actions the player makes in a game are limited to the game-world, as are the reactions of either the game itself or the other players. GM: Depending on the context, see Gold Master or Game Master. Going Gold: The time when a team completes a game and is thereby able to create the Gold Master which is sent to the duplicators. See also Gold Master. Gold Candidate: See Release Candidate. Gold Master: The version of the game, typically recorded onto gold CDs, which is going to be used by the duplicator to create copies of the actual shipping game. In other words, the final version of the game. Graphical User Interface: This is any communications method the player has of interacting with the computer that is primarily graphical in nature. For instance, the Macintosh has always had a graphical user interface, as opposed to the text-oriented one available in MS-DOS or UNIX. Games use GUIs for starting up new games, load- ing saved games, and choosing other options from the main menu, but also for communicating information to the player not readily apparent from their view of the game-world: the player character’s health, currently equipped weapon, amount of ammo, number of lives, score, and so forth. GUI: See Graphical User Interface.
  6. Glossary 553 Heads Up Display: A type of graphical user interface which is overlaid on top of the player’s game-world view. This may include the player character’s health, a mini-map of the area, or radar of some sort, and typically communicates vital information to which the player must always have easy access. Heads up displays take their name from the displays used by jet fighter pilots, which constantly convey crucial flying informa- tion to those pilots while they are navigating the plane. See also Graphical User Interface. High Concept: An idea for a game which attempts to merge disparate types of gameplay or setting into one game, without regard to whether those different ideas will work well together. An example might be making a first-person shooter which is also a racing game, or a wargame which includes a golf simulator. Usually synonymous with “bad concept.” HUD: See Heads Up Display. IF: See Interactive Fiction. IK: See Inverse Kinematics. Input/Output: Often shortened to I/O, this refers to the systems a computer uses to allow the player to input information (typically a keyboard and a mouse) in combina- tion with how it communicates information back out to the user (typically the monitor). In terms of computer games, the I/O refers to the controls with which the player manip- ulates the game and the way the game then communicates to the player the current nature of the game-world. Interactive: An interaction is when two systems, be they a human and a human, a human and a computer, or a computer and a computer, are mutually active in a given process. For instance, a television show is not interactive, since only the television out- puts data and completely ignores whatever the user/audience does. A conversation between two people is interactive, however, since both parties listen to what the other has to say and will then say something related or in response to that. As another exam- ple, a strict lecture is not interactive since the lecturer reads a prepared speech without any input from the audience. A discussion group, however, is interactive, since the pro- fessor or leader of the discussion will answer the students’ questions and listen to and evaluate their ideas. Games are interactive since they allow both the player and the computer to determine the shape of that particular game. Computer games are not being especially interactive when they play long cut-scenes over which the player has no control. Interactive Fiction: A term originally coined by Infocom, which is an alternate name for text adventures. Some people use interactive fiction to describe any games which use text to describe scenes and include a text parser, even if graphics are also included. See also Text Adventure.
  7. 554 Glossary Interactive Movie: A term coined by those working in games who wish to call their profession something more glamorous than what it is, similarly to how the comic book industry sometimes attempts to call some of its longer and more sophisticated works “graphic novels.” Typically, interactive movies involve more and longer cut-scenes than your average game. Unfortunately, the makers of so-called “interactive movies” typi- cally add more movie than they do interactivity, resulting in works which are almost always not very good movies and lack the interactivity to be good games. Inverse Kinematics: An animation technique whereby a joint in a character’s skele- ton is moved to a desired location and the joints that depend on or are influenced by that joint are automatically moved to the correct location. For example, if animating a humanoid, the hand could be moved toward a door handle and the elbow and shoulder would automatically move to reasonable positions. See also Skeletal Animation. I/O: See Input/Output. Isometric: Isometric is defined to mean “equality of measure,” particularly in refer- ence to drawing objects. If one were isometrically drawing a cube from a distance with one of the points of the cube pointing directly toward the viewer, the lines of the cube would all be of the same length and would not use any foreshortening. Games such as Civilization II, SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000, and StarCraft are drawn isometrically. This allows a game to be drawn from a somewhat 3D overhead view which can then be scrolled around in all directions, without actually needing to involve a 3D rendering engine. The perspective on the world is technically wrong, but players do not seem to mind. Also referred to as a “three-quarters” view of the game world. LAN: An acronym for a Local Area Network. These networks typically consist of a small number of computers in a specific area networked to each other but not necessar- ily to the Internet or other networks. LAN Party: Held when a bunch of friends get together, bring their computers to one central location, and play multi-player games over them. Typically the fast “Ping” times allow players to have much faster and more lag-free games than are available over the Internet or other long-distance networks. Linear: When the only one way to get from point A to point B is via the line segment which connects them, we say that the movement is linear. Linear implies a lack of choice outside of a single dimension: forward or backward. In gaming, a linear game is one that does not give the player much choice in what he does. For some games, linear may mean no choice at all, since backward is often not even an option. Lone Wolf: Term used to describe game developers who do practically everything themselves in the development of a game: the design, programming, art, sound, and writing. At the very least, a lone wolf developer must do all of the game’s design and programming herself. A lone wolf does not typically develop commercially released software any more, though there are exceptions. For example, Chris Sawyer designed
  8. Glossary 555 and programmed all of RollerCoaster Tycoon by himself, with a contractor completing the art to his specifications. Though he did not do the art himself, Sawyer can still be described as a lone wolf developer. Massively Multi-Player: Strictly, a multi-player game involving a very large number of people playing it at once, at least 100 or more. Typically such games are also persis- tent and played over the Internet. Ultima Online and Ever Quest are examples of massively multi-player games. See also Multi-Player and Persistent. Media: Go out and buy Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media. Read it. Come back only when you fully understand it. Metagame: According to Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering, the metagame is “how a game interfaces with life.” This means what the player takes to and brings away from a particular playing of a game and how that impacts his subse- quent playings of that game. This is particularly applicable to multi-player games. Take, for example, a game of Quake III Arena on the Internet. If one player is known to play unethically through camping and other undesirable tactics, players will be likely to make a special effort to eliminate him in subsequent games. This means that the player may end up losing subsequent games because of his behavior in previous games. This interaction between the players from game to game is not part of the playing of the game itself, but is part of the metagame that the playing creates. For another example, in Magic: The Gathering the time a player spends preparing his deck before a game, though not part of the game itself, is part of the metagame. Milestones: A term often used in contracts between publishers and developers. A milestone is an agreement of how much work on a project will be done at a specific date, with the publisher only paying the developer when that milestone (usually in the form of a current build of the game) is delivered to the publisher. Mod: Short for “modification,” mods are user-created add-ons or changes to an exist- ing game. Mods were popularized by id Software’s open-architecture policy which allowed players to make their own levels for Doom. Beyond levels, mods also often include new AI, new weapons, new art, or some combination of all three, potentially creating a radically altered gameplay experience from what was found in the original game. MUD: Stands for Multi User Dungeon. MUDs resemble a text adventure with heavy RPG elements in their central play mechanics, with the important difference being that they take place in persistent, massively multi-player worlds. MUDs were set up and run by college students starting in the 1980s. Players of the games, when they reached a high enough experience level or rank, would become the creators of the games’ content for other, more inexperienced players to explore. The primary interest many players have in MUDs is the social component, preferring to chat with people they have never seen before to going on Dungeons & Dragons style adventures. In many ways, Ultima Online is a carefully regulated graphical MUD. Another popular variant are MOOs,
  9. 556 Glossary which stands for MUD, Object Oriented. In terms of game design, MOOs and MUDs are identical; only the way they are programmed and set up is different. Multi-Player: A game that involves more than one player. Today, this typically also means “networked multi-player” where each player has his own computer and com- petes with the other players over a network, such as the Internet. Non-Linear: Obviously, the opposite of linear. In terms of gaming, this means that the player is not locked into achieving different goals in a specific order or in achieving all of the goals she is presented with. Instead, the player is able to move through the game in a variety of paths and can be successful in a variety of ways. Non-linearity leaves the player with more choice to play the game her own way. See also Linear and On a Rail. Non-Player Character: Any character in a computer game which is not controlled by the player. Typically this refers to game-world characters who are not hostile to the player, such as townspeople in an RPG. NPC: See Non-Player Character. NURBS: Stands for non-uniform rational B-splines. A 3D graphics technique for cre- ating curved surfaces, a detailed explanation of which should be sought out in a 3D graphics programming book. On a Rail or On Rails: A game is said to be on a rail when a player is forced to move through the game in a very specific, carefully controlled way, as if he were locked onto a rail that ran through the game. Games which are said to be “on a rail” or “on rails” are very linear games. A specific type of game called a “rail shooter” is on rails to such an extent that the flight path of the player’s vehicle is completely predeter- mined, and the player is only able to shoot at targets as they pass by. Rebel Assault is an example of a rail shooter. See also Linear. 180 Degree Rule: A film technique for cutting a scene that says that the camera must always stay on one side of a line that extends between the two centers of attention in the frame. If the camera never rotates anywhere outside of those 180 degrees, the audience will not become confused by the scene’s cuts from character to character. Parser: In gaming, often refers to the input method used by text adventures. A parser takes natural language words or sentences the player enters and translates them into commands that the game logic can understand. Parsers can become quite sophisticated while still failing to understand many of the sentences that players attempt to use as commands. Natural language processing is a major field of AI research, one that is still far from perfect, so it is no wonder that parsers have as much trouble as they do. A more modern usage of the term parser is in reference to the interpreter for a game’s scripting language. See also Text Adventure. Pathfinding: This is the portion of the AI code which allows an agent to figure out how to get from one location to another in the game-world. Ideally, pathfinding allows
  10. Glossary 557 the AI agent to avoid getting stuck on obstacles or other agents, yet pathfinding in many games is less than perfect. There are various algorithms, such as A*, that can be used for pathfinding which may have different results in terms of efficiency and the quality of the paths generated, though that is a topic better explored in a book about programming. See also A*. PC: May refer either to a game’s player character or to the Intel-based personal com- puter originally popularized by IBM and powered by MS-DOS. Also see Player Character. Persistent: A persistent game is one which continues running and maintaining the state of the game-world regardless of whether a particular player is actively playing it or not. Often persistent games are also massively multi-player, and vice versa. MUDs were one of the first persistent games, while commercial products such as Ultima Online and Ever Quest have made persistent games quite popular to mainstream gamers. See also MUDs. Pitch Document: See Concept Document. Place-Holder: Typically refers to sounds or art used in a game while it is in develop- ment but which the development team plans to replace before the game is released to the public. Platform: Often used to describe the different systems a game can be developed for. Popular gaming platforms past and present include the Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore 64, IBM PC, Commodore Amiga, Macintosh, Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment Sys- tem, Sega Genesis, and the Sony PlayStation. Player Character: This is the character the player controls in the game, such as Mario in Super Mario 64, Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, or the space marine in Doom. This term is a holdover from pencil and paper RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons. Player Surrogate: See Surrogate. Playtesting: A term referring to the process of testing the gameplay of the game to see how well it plays. Playtesting is different from bug fixing or quality assurance in general since playtesting focuses on the performance of gameplay itself instead of gen- eral bug fixing. See Chapter 23, “Playtesting.” Port/Porting: The process of converting a game from one gaming platform to another, such as from the PC to the Macintosh, or from the Sony PlayStation to the Nintendo 64. Typically, games which are ported are completed on one system first, and only then brought over to the other system. PR: See Public Relations. Pre-Rendered: 3D graphics which are rendered into 2D sprites or images before the player plays the game. Myst features pre-rendered 3D graphics, while Unreal features real-time 3D graphics. See also Real-Time 3D.
  11. 558 Glossary Proposal: See Concept Document. PSX: An abbreviation for Sony’s PlayStation console. Actually based on an early name for the system, the PlayStation X. Nonetheless, the abbreviation stuck. However, Sony does not like you calling their newer system the PSX2. Public Relations: A wing of the marketing department whose primary job is to hype a company’s upcoming games in the press by readying press releases, screenshots, and other information. They also can be quite helpful in granting permission to use screenshots in books such as this one. QA: See Quality Assurance. Quality Assurance: This is the process of testing a game to make sure that it is Y bug-free and plays reasonably well. The quality assurance cycle or period is the time FL when a nearly complete project is extensively tested just prior to release. In large com- panies, the quality assurance department or team are the people who are going to perform that testing. AM Rail, On a: See On a Rail. Real-Time: Anything that is computed or rendered for the player while he waits, TE such as graphics and pathfinding. This differentiates something from being pre- computed before the actual gameplay is taking place. Can also differentiate a game from being turn-based. See also Turn-Based. Real-Time Strategy: A currently popular genre of games, including such titles as Command & Conquer, WarCraft, Total Annihilation, and Myth: The Fallen Lords. This term is typically emphasized to differentiate these RTS games from turn-based strategy games such as Civilization, X-Com: UFO Defense, and Alpha Centauri. Real-Time 3D: Describes 3D graphics which are rendered while the player is look- ing at them, so that as the player moves around the world, many different views of objects and configurations of the game-world can be generated on the fly. Unreal uses real-time 3D graphics while Myst uses pre-rendered 3D graphics. See also Pre-Rendered. Release Candidate: A build of the game which the development team believes may be the one that can be shipped. A release candidate is generally tested for at least a few days, optimally a week or two, to determine if it is bug-free enough to be acceptable to the publisher. It is not uncommon for a particular product to go through five or more release candidates. Role-Playing Game: Games based on the type of gameplay established by pencil and paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Those original non-computer-games were so titled because in them players took on the roles of charac- ters of their own creation and guided them through a fantasy world. Much of the gameplay in RPGs depends on the players role-playing these characters who often had personalities different from their own. Ironically, most computer role-playing games Team-Fly®
  12. Glossary 559 often contain very little of the role-playing aspect of traditional RPGs, instead choosing to concentrate on the combat mechanics and fantasy setting. RPG: See Role-Playing Game. RT3D: See Real-Time 3D. RTS: See Real-Time Strategy. Scripted: In terms of a game, scripted typically refers to AI behaviors that are planned in advance to allow the AI agents to look clever in specific situations in a level. Scripted events play the same way every time a player plays a level. Half-Life used scripted events to produce very impressive gameplay effects that gave the illusion of a very smart AI system. Sim: Short for simulator or simulation. See Simulation. Simulation: In a game described as a simulation, the primary goal of the game’s designer is to model a real-life system accurately and realistically, instead of simply making the game as fun as possible. This system could be anything, such as an aircraft of some kind, a race car, or a city. Simulator: See Simulation. Skeletal Animation: An alternative to vertex deformation for 3D animations. With a skeletal animation system, the game keeps track of an animating character’s skeleton. The animation then controls this skeleton, moving the animating character’s mesh to match the skeleton properly. A skeletal animation system has the advantage of causing animations to take up much less space than when they are animated using a technique such as vertex deformation, as well as often leading to superior looking animations. Furthermore, the skeleton can be controlled procedurally for inverse kinematics effects of various types. See also Vertex Deformation and Inverse Kinematics. Skin: In gaming, skin refers to the texture set being used on a 3D player character in a game like Quake III Arena or Unreal Tournament. Players will get to choose what skin they play the game with either from the default collection that comes with the game, or by making their own and importing it into the game. This has recently become popular outside of the realm of first-person shooters in The Sims. SKU: Stands for stock keeping unit or shelf keeping unit. It is the unique number associated with every bar code and used by stores to track their inventory. Each unique version of a game is sometimes referred to as a different SKU. If one game ships for a number of different platforms, say Macintosh and PC, then each version is a separate SKU. Similarly, Thief and Thief Gold are two different SKUs, though they are practi- cally the same game. Software Toy: A term coined by Will Wright of Maxis to describe that company’s first product, SimCity. A software toy is quite similar to a game, except that it defines no criterion for success. The player is just left to play with the game as she wishes with- out ever “winning” or “losing.” Yet a player may make a software toy into a game by
  13. 560 Glossary defining her own personal conditions for success. See also Game. State-Based AI: A type of AI which uses states for each of its agents. States include actions such as idle, walking, attacking, and so forth. The AI then switches the agent from one state to another depending on the conditions of the game-world. May also be referred to as a finite state machine or FSM. State Machine: See State-Based AI. Story Bible: A document that contains all the information available about the story elements of the game-world. Story bibles can be quite large, especially when working with properties with established histories, such as the Star Trek or Ultima universes. These documents are usually used as reference works for the developers during the game’s creation. Described in detail in Chapter 15, “Game Development Documentation.” Surrogate: A term used to describe the entity that the player controls in the game, also known as the player character or the player’s avatar. See also Avatar and Player Character. TDD: See Technical Design Document. Technical Design Document: This document takes the gameplay as described in the Design Document and explains how that gameplay will be implemented in more techni- cal, code-centered terms. As a result, this document is often used primarily by the programming team. Described in detail in Chapter 15, “Game Development Documentation.” Technical Specification: Another name for the Technical Design Document. See Tech- nical Design Document. Text Adventure: Text adventures are devoid of graphics and describe the game- world to the player exclusively through text. Players are then able to interact with the game-world by typing in natural language sentences in the imperative form stating what they want their character to do next. The form was made extremely popular by Infocom in the early 1980s. See also Interactive Fiction. Three-Quarters View: Typically refers to games that have an isometric view point. This view can be in any rendering system with an overhead view of the ground where the camera is oriented at a 45-degree angle from the plane of the ground. See also Isometric. Turn-Based: Any game where the computer waits for the player to act before pro- ceeding with its own actions. Civilization, for instance, is a turn-based strategy game, while WarCraft is a real-time strategy game. For some non-computer game examples, chess is a turn-based game while football (soccer) is real-time. American football is a bizarre hybrid of real-time and turn-based gameplay. Turn-Based Strategy: See Turn-Based.
  14. Glossary 561 Vertex Deformation: A 3D animation system where the individual vertices of a model are moved one by one to new positions for each frame of the animation. This is the simplest 3D animation method to code for, but has many disadvantages over a skel- etal animation system. Sometimes also called key-frame animation. Also see Skeletal Animation. Virtual Reality: Technically, virtual reality, or VR, refers to advanced world- simulation systems at a minimum involving the user wearing a set of goggles with a small monitor or display device in each eyepiece. This allows the player to get a truly 3D, stereo-vision experience. Also, the VR headset allows the player to turn her head and have her view of the virtual world change accordingly, to match the new location at which she is “looking.” VR systems may also involve wearing gloves or full-body suits which detect the user’s motion and translate that into motion in the virtual world. Vir- tual reality is one of the most commonly misused terms in all of computer game parlance. Many game developers with inflated senses of what they are doing will refer to their RT3D first-person games as VR when, since they do not involve headsets, they are really nothing of the kind. Marketing people are particularly fond of misusing and abusing this term. VR: See Virtual Reality. Wargame: When used in reference to computer games, wargame typically refers to strategy-oriented games which employ gameplay based on pen and paper or board wargames such as those made by Avalon Hill. Computer wargames almost always sim- ulate historic battles, typically feature hexagon-based play-fields, and use turn-based gameplay. Games which are set in historical wars but are not strategic in nature are not generally referred to as wargames. Classic examples of computer wargames include Kampfgruppe and Eastern Front (1941), while more modern examples include Panzer General and Close Combat.
  15. Selected Bibliography T he following references have been a great help to me in solidifying my ideas about computer games. I list them here as a sort of “recommended reading” list for those who wish to continue to learn about game design outside the confines of this book. Books Bogdanovich, Peter. Who The Devil Made It. New York: Knopf, 1997. A fascinating collection of interviews with classic film directors. Bogdanovich’s interview style was my model for the interviews conducted in this book. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York: Bollingen Foundation Inc., 1949. Reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972. Campbell’s book is the definitive text on understanding the nature of myths, leg- ends, and heroic stories from throughout the ages. Crawford, Chris. The Art of Computer Game Design. Berkeley, CA: Osborne/ McGraw-Hill, 1984. Crawford’s seminal work was the first book about computer game design and was the inspiration for this book. Despite its age in computer game industry terms, it remains largely relevant today. Though it is out of print, it can currently be read in a number of locations on the Internet, including Hague, James. Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers. Issaquah, WA: Dadgum Games, 1997. Hague’s book is an invaluable source of information about what it was like to work in the gaming industry just as it was starting to establish itself. All information comes straight from the source through a series of interviews with a broad range of subjects, including many whose work is discussed in this book: Eugene Jarvis, Dani Bunten Berry, Dan Gorlin, Brian Moriarty, Ed Rotberg, Chris Crawford, and so on. The HTML-format book is available from Hague’s company, Dadgum Games, at 562
  16. Selected Bibliography 563 McCloud, Scott. Reinventing Comics. New York: Paradox Press, 2000. ________. Understanding Comics. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink Press, Inc., 1993. Though these books are technically about comics, they both provide tremendous insight about media and art of all kinds. It is fair to say that Understanding Comics fundamentally changed the way I think about art. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1964. Reprint, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. The definitive book on media of all kinds, a work which takes on new meaning in the age of the Internet. McLuhan may be a bit obtuse in his writing style, but his insights are without peer. Strunk, William and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1959. Reprint 4th Ed., Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000. The Elements of Style remains the last word on clear and concise writing, a book anyone writing a design document, script, or book about game design would do well to read. Periodicals Computer Gaming World (Ziff Davis Media) A magazine that has been around almost as long as computer games themselves, Computer Gaming World remains informative and insightful. Game Developer (CMP Media, Inc.) The closest the gaming industry has to a professional journal, which covers all aspects of game development, including articles on game design. Next Generation (Imagine Media, Inc.) A hybrid computer game/console game magazine with an emphasis on cutting-edge game technology and, sometimes, the theory and people behind the games. Web Sites A tribute page to the late Dani Bunten Berry, the tremendously gifted designer of the classic M.U.L.E. Includes some of Berry’s writings about game design and reflections on her career. Greg Costikyan is best known for his pencil and paper game designs, including the classic games Toon and Paranoia, though he has also done a number of computer
  17. 564 Selected Bibliography games. His web site includes an array of articles he has written, including the very interesting screed, “I Have No Words & I Must Design.” Chris Crawford’s current home on the web, centered on his interactive storytelling engine, the Erasmatron. Also includes a vast library of Crawford’s writings about game design, including everything he ever wrote for the Journal of Computer Game Design and links to the full text of The Art of Computer Game Design. Required reading. Gamasutra is the sister web site of Game Developer magazine. The site runs origi- nal content as well as some reprints from the magazine. Within its pages, a vast wealth of information is archived and searchable. The home page for Noah Falstein’s game consulting company, The Inspiracy. Includes a number of articles by Falstein and transcripts of some of his talks at the Game Developer’s Conference.
  18. 565 Index Page numbers in bold indicate an image of that particular game. 1830, 24 Adams, Scott, 353, 368 2D adaptation, 182 adaptation to 3D, 308, 373-374 of non-computer games, 148 game-worlds, 381-382 story to audience, 217 games, 114, 407, 412 addictive gameplay, 27-28, 60, 109, 156, 369 graphics, 380 Advanced Squirrel Hunting, 261 graphics vs. 3D graphics, 306-307, 327, 427 Adventure, 197 3D adventure games, xx, 13, 16, 22, 43, 49, 51, 82, 126, accelerator cards, 249 146-147, 179-183, 188, 190, 198, 201-202, 205, action games, 136, 141, 374 207-208, 211-212, 230, 236-247, 249-250, 285, camera, 451-452, 460 298-299, 352-354, 366-368, 396, 408, 413, 429 engines, 43-45, 89, 111, 132, 306-308, 369, 427, 460 adventure/RPG games, 237 game-worlds, 16-17, 87, 108-109, 115, 138, advertising, 202, 302 173-176, 211, 373-374, 381, 386-387, 421, 428 Age of Empires, 30, 32, 58, 460 games, 110, 114, 383, 407, 450-452 AI, see artificial intelligence graphics, 152, 380 Alexander, Christopher, 454 hardware, 452 Alice in Wonderland, 197 modeling packages, 390 Alpha Centauri, 41, 158, 162, 163, 327, 328, 337 vs. 2D games, 7, 77, 89, 114, 407 alpha, 480 3D Studio Max, 386-387 alpha testing, 194 7th Guest, The, 221 ambient life, 169-170, 329, 365 American Association for Artificial Intelligence, 272 A Amiga, 189, 269, 438, 439 abdicating authorship, 396-398, 400, 409 Anderson, Tim, 188 abstraction vs. representation, 283 animation, 348, 350, 351, 359, 361, 363, 387-388 Abyss, The, 199 animators, 340, 371 academic conferences, 272 animé, 300 academic techniques, 437 annual revisions of games, 249 Accolade, 202 anonymity of player character, 245 accountants, 128-129 anticipatory game design, 122-123, 218 action games, xviii, 43, 56, 140-141, 147-149, 172, 306, antisocial, 5 352-353, 396, 401 Ants, The, 447 action/adventure games, 44-45, 133, 211, 305, 335, AOL, 440 413-414, 418, 420 Apple, 191 action/exploration games, 415, 418-419 Apple II, 104, 180, 186-187, 192, 266-267, 349, 372, active participants, 491 376, 435 Activision, 187-189, 193, 199, 204-205 Apple Invaders, 347 actors, 18, 360-361, 371 Arabian Nights, 350 Adams, Douglas, 182-183 arbitrary puzzles, 415
  19. 566 Index arcade games, xvii, xx, 5-6, 15, 45, 53-54, 59-64, 93, Atari Research Division, 268, 271 112, 149-151, 161, 179, 189, 227, 435, 485-486 audience, 191, 203-204, 222, 231, 261-262, 311, 446, arcades, 111, 113, 149, 93 459-460, 465-466, 489 environment in, 113 target, 477-478, 482 architecture, 455 audio, 220, 242, 364-365, 444 Area 51, 112 designer, 371 Arkanoid, 114 subconscious, 445 art assets, 232 vs. visual information, 144 art bible, 292-294, 300, 302, 341 AutoCAD, 451 art deco, 300 autonomous behavior, 403 art director, 328 Avalon Hill, 24, 26, 264 art form, 489 Avellar, Norm, 109 Art Nouveau, 362-363 Avid, 358 Art of Computer Game Design, The, 76, 263, 271-272 awe-inspiring, 414 art team, 333, 335 Arthur, 199 B artificial intelligence, 5, 17, 36, 46-47, 87, 100-101, back-story, 227, 296-297, 300, 338-340 118-119, 153-154, 158-178, 231, 253, 255, 264, 288, Back-Story Tome, 339-340, 343 295, 301, 329-332, 334, 339, 341, 344, 379, 389, Bailey, Donna, 59, 101 393, 417, 429, 432, 473 balance, 96, 107-108, 157, 367, 417 cheating, 170 Balance of Power, 263, 269, 270, 273, 274, 290 collaborative, 162 Balance of Power II: The 1990 Edition, 273, 276, 277, dumb actions, 163-164 290 environments, 172-174 Balance of the Planet, 278, 279, 290 equal vs. unequal, 161-162, 170-172, 331 balancing, 36, 103, 173, 208, 256-257, 334, 341, flee/retreat, 17, 177, 330, 334 385-386, 388, 418, 483-486 goals of, 160-170 adjusting settings and massaging data, 389-390, 466, in design document, 321, 332 484 irrational, 166 hooks for, 389-390 overpowering the player, 162 iterations through, 484 outnumbering the player, 161-162, 170 bandwidth, 207 realism, 171 Barbie, 439 simple, 160-161 Bard’s Tale, The, 142, 491 sophistication of, 172, 175-176 Bard’s Tale II, The, 491 stupid, 163-164, 167, 170, 176 Barthelet, Luc, 467 unfair advantage, 170 baseball, 408 unpredictable, 164-167 basketball, 420, 423, 439 artificial stupidity, 178 Bates, Bob, 199 artists, xix, 76, 83-84, 102, 114, 116, 298, 300, 309, Battle of Hunter’s Run, 30 334, 339, 343, 371, 388, 421 Battlezone, 64, 111 artistic license, 399 behavior modeling, 454 Asteroids, 62, 64, 93, 94, 98, 99-100, 100, 104, 114, behaviors, 160, 167-169, 177, 219, 225-226, 330-331, 120, 151, 347 362, 389-390, 455-456 lurking, 98-99 Berez, Joel, 186-187 saucer, 98, 103 Berkeley, 95, 454 Asteroids Deluxe, 99 Berry, Dani, 277-278, 470 Atari, 93-95, 100, 106-107, 109, 110-114, 265-269, 347 beta, 480 Atari 2600, 95, 100, 104-105, 120, 265-266 beta testing, 194 Atari 800, 186-187, 266, 290 Beyond Zork, 188, 237, 240 Atari Program Exchange, 267 Big Sleep, The, 230-231
  20. Index 567 Bjornson, Edith, 281 C Blair Witch Project, The, 185 cabinet art, 227 Blank, Marc, 180, 186-188, 195 Cambridge, 186 Bleszinski, Cliff, 417 camera, 258, 308, 327 blind play, 264 3D, 451-452, 460 blister packs, 195-196 control, 307 Blitzkrieg, 264 following, 374 Blizzard Entertainment, 391-392 in level editor, 380-381 “Blowin’ in the Wind,” 273-274 Cameron, James, 188 board games, 26, 29, 40-41, 152, 154, 264 Captain Hero, 449 Boffo Games, 180, 205 card games, 189 Bogart, Humphrey, 205 Carlston, Doug, 348, 439 Bond, James, 171 Carlyle, Thomas, 378 Bone, 244 cartoons, 285, 362-363 bonus objectives, 425 Castle Wolfenstein, 94, 108 bounds of game-world, 9-10, 210 Castles of Doctor Creep, The, 350 bragging rights, 5-6, 63 casual gamers, 88, 204, 209, 311-312, 451-452, brainstorming, 94, 101-102, 117, 193, 233 459-460, 477 branching conversations, 39, 239, 241, 285, 298 CD-ROM games, 207, 220-221, 359 branching stories, 232 cell animation, 18, 300 branching tree, 366 cellular automata, 437 branding, 38, 191 censorship, 77 Braun, Jeff, 438 Centipede, xviii, xx, 6, 15, 53-56, 61, 63-72, 65, 67, 69, breadth of gameplay, 396 71, 86-88, 93-94, 101, 102, 101-103, 110, 114-115, vs. depth, 401 120, 124-125, 130-132, 142, 149, 151, 154, 159-161, breaking the experience, 364 215, 224, 252-253, 336, 408, 485-486 Breakout, 94-95, 114 “Bug Shooter” idea, 94, 101 bridge (game of), 3 focus, 86 Broadway, 12 mushrooms, 55-56, 66-71, 102-103, 124 Broderbund, 348-349, 437 Centipede (3D version), 50, 53-55, 54, 86, 87-88, 164, BSP engines, 306 221, 252-253, 258, 313, 383, 386-387, 391, 485-486 BTZ engine, 190 focus, 87 budgets, xxi, 55, 57, 75-76, 83, 85, 115-117, 185-186, level editor, 386-387 196-197, 200, 205-206, 212, 249-250, 252, 270-271, Cerny, Mark, 104 295, 301-302, 363, 369-371, 373, 458 challenge, 2-3, 5, 15-16, 125-127, 129, 134, 148-150, builder games, 409, 434 153-155, 160-163, 167, 169-170, 176, 237, 312, 385, building, 25, 407 427 a functional area, 256-257 changes, 257-259 as gameplay, xviii, 379, 400, 408, 451-452 in development, 342 game-worlds, 379 in game design, 37-38, 261-262, 369, 374-376, 390, incrementally, 254-256 425, 428, 438, 484 levels, 251 outcome of story, 245 the game, 254-259 Chaplin, Charlie, 197 Bungie Software, 313, 384 characters, xix, 13, 75, 182, 193, 198, 211, 215, 217, Bunten, Dan, 277-278, 470 219, 224-226, 230-232, 245, 249, 255, 268, 294, burn rate, 75 296-297, 322, 330, 340, 342, 352-354, 356, 360-361, Bushnell, Nolan, 94 367, 377, 425-426 buttons, 137, 324, 352, 402, 458-459 in design document, 331-332 icons for, 144 interaction, 181-182 motivations, 296-297, 354
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