“Never forget that your ultimate goal is to create entertainment for the player—” — Ernest Adams Goals Copy Share Image
“Players don’t mind getting money for free, but when they have to spend it, they want to know why. Explain your drains.” — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“A game concept is a description of a game detailed enough to begin discussing it as a potential commercial product—a piece of… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“Sources If a resource or entity can come into the game world having not been there before, the mechanic by which it… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“In the most general sense, a balanced game is fair to the player (or players), is neither too easy nor too hard,… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“The relative difficulty is the difficulty of a challenge relative to the player’s power to meet that challenge.” — Ernest Adams Adversity Copy Share Image
“One of the purposes of a game world is simply to entertain in its own right: to offer the player a place… — Ernest Adams Nature Copy Share Image
“To keep the absolute difficulty level constant, whenever you increase the time pressure on a player, you should also reduce the amount… — Ernest Adams Football Copy Share Image
“Ultimately, the violence in a game should serve the gameplay. If it doesn’t, then it’s gratuitous and you should consider doing without… — Ernest Adams Realism Copy Share Image
“A longstanding tradition in action games, and many other genres as well, calls for the inclusion of a boss to defeat at… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“You know, the suspension of disbelief is fragile. It’s hard to achieve it and hard to maintain. One bit of unnecessary gore,… — Ernest Adams Disbelief Copy Share Image
“To someone who’s playing a game for the first time, the world is vital to creating and sustaining her interest. The other… — Ernest Adams First place Copy Share Image
“You should also make fresh supplies available to him immediately after he surmounts a challenge that costs him a lot of resources,… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“Unless your game is a just-for-fun simulation such as Super Mario Kart or Beetle Adventure Racing!, vehicle simulation is the most technologically… — Ernest Adams Mario kart Copy Share Image
“Designing the core mechanics consists of identifying the key entities and mechanics in the game and writing specifications to document the nature… — Ernest Adams Nature Copy Share Image
“In designing your game’s internal economy, you need to watch out for deadlocks, which can occur whenever there’s a loop in the… — Ernest Adams Video Copy Share Image
“Design Rule The Story Comes Later Do not spend a lot of time devising a story at the concept stage. This is… — Ernest Adams Time Copy Share Image
“Relative Difficulty and Power Provided You cannot determine how the player perceives the difficulty of a challenge through absolute difficulty alone. You… — Ernest Adams Strength Copy Share Image
“Concept Art and Model Sheets Concept art consists of drawings made early in the design process to give people an idea of… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“Overused Settings All too often, games borrow settings from one another or from common settings found in the movies, books, or television.… — Ernest Adams Books Copy Share Image
“If the available power grows at exactly the same rate as the absolute difficulty goes up, the relative difficulty will be a… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“Lead Designer. This person oversees the overall design of the game and is responsible for making sure that it is complete and… — Ernest Adams Design work Copy Share Image
“The perceived difficulty of a challenge—the difficulty that the player actually senses, and the type we are most concerned with—consists of the… — Ernest Adams Adversity Copy Share Image
“Entities that store one value are called simple entities. Compound entities are groups of related simple entities, so a compound entity can… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“Myst and Gemstone both have harmony. They have it because their makers had a vision of the experience they were trying to… — Ernest Adams Bad language Copy Share Image
“People love to design and create things, whether clothing, creatures, buildings, cities, or planets. They also love to customize a basic template… — Ernest Adams Design Copy Share Image
“Core Mechanics The core mechanics consist of the data and the algorithms that precisely define the game’s rules and internal operations.” — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“In contrast, games of progression offer many predesigned challenges that the designer has ordered sequentially, usually through sophisticated level design.” — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“Fundamental AI Technologies” in Core Techniques and Algorithms in Game Programming by Daniel Sánchez-Crespo Dalmau (Dalmau, 2004).” — Ernest Adams Algorithms Copy Share Image
“Economies about money are called market economies. But we use the term in a more abstract way to refer to any kind… — Ernest Adams Economics Copy Share Image
“For a more detailed discussion of the subject, read Neal and Jana Hallford’s Swords and Circuitry (Hallford and Hallford, 2001).” — Ernest Adams Writer Copy Share Image
“Game worlds are much more than the sum of the pictures and sounds that portray them. A game world can have a… — Ernest Adams Moral values Copy Share Image
“What Are Action Games? Action game An action game is one in which the majority of challenges presented are tests of the… — Ernest Adams Action Copy Share Image
“Don’t confuse the term games of progression with other ideas about progression in games, such as leveling up, difficulty curves, skill trees,… — Ernest Adams Progression Copy Share Image
“As a general principle, the pacing of a level in any game, especially a game with physical challenges, should alternate between fast… — Ernest Adams Action movie Copy Share Image
“Drains A drain is a mechanic that determines the consumption of resources—that is, a rule specifying how resources permanently drop out of… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“The level designers have to know, for example, that by the time the player reaches the fourth level, he will have earned… — Ernest Adams Time Copy Share Image
“Production Mechanisms Production mechanism describes a class of mechanics that make a resource conveniently available to a player. These include sources that… — Ernest Adams Copy Share Image
“Plan to throw away all sound, art, and code created for a prototype. That way your artists, audio people, and programmers can… — Ernest Adams Art Copy Share Image
