Level design connects the player to the game through challenges, experiences, and emotions. This book is an invaluable introduction to the evolving practices of Level Designers across the games industry. The increasingly complex role of the Level Designer requires technical and creative skill as it brings together architecture, art, player psychology, interaction design, usability, and experience design. This book explores in detail the principles designers employ when planning levels and ...

Video Game Design is a visual introduction to integrating core design essentials, such as critical analysis, mechanics and aesthetics, prototyping, level design, into game design.Using a raft of examples from a diverse range of leading international creatives and award-winning studios, this is a must-have guide for budding game designers. Industry perspectives from game industry professionals provide fascinating insights into this creative field, and each chapter concludes...

This book will help you design media that engages, entertains, communicates and 'sticks' with the audience. Packed with examples of groundbreaking interactive design, this book provides a solid introduction to the principles of interactive communication and detailed case studies from world-leading industry experts.The Fundamentals of Interactive Design takes you step by step through each stage of the creative process – from inspiration to practical application of designing...

“McGonigal is a clear, methodical writer, and her ideas are well argued. Assertions are backed by countless psychological studies.” —The Boston Globe“Powerful and provocative . . . McGonigal makes a persuasive case that games have a lot to teach us about how to make our lives, and the world, better.” —San Jose Mercury News“Jane McGonigal's insights have the elegant, compact, deadly simplicity of plutonium, and the same exp...

**A New York Times BestsellerFrom one of our leading technology thinkers and writers, a guide through the twelve technological imperatives that will shape the next thirty years and transform our lives**Much of what will happen in the next thirty years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion. In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our li...

Why attractive things work better—and other crucial insights into human-centered design.**“You'll never see housewares the same way again.”—**WiredEmotions are inseparable from how we humans think, choose, and act. In Emotional Design, cognitive scientist Don Norman shows how the principles of human psychology apply to the invention and design of new technologies and products. Building on his seminal book The Design of...

In the tradition of Who Owns the Future, an MIT Media Lab scientist imagines how everyday objects can intuit our needs, improve our lives, and form “an ethereal interconnection of gadgets and human desires that...will pervade our lives in the very near future” (The Wall Street Journal).We are now standing at the precipice of the next transformative development, a world in which technology becomes more human. Soon, connected technology wil...

"Anna Anthropy is a key personality in the ongoing paradigm shift that is slowly changing the way videogames are understood, by creators and players, and by the wider culture."—Patrick Alexander, Eegra.com"Equal parts autobiography, ethnography, and how-to manual, this book concisely makes the case for the unique power of 'zinester' games."—Adam Parrish, NYU's Interactive Telecommunication Program (Tisch School of the Arts), and author of the ZZT game "Winter"...

Building products and services that people interact with is the big challenge of the 21st century. Dan Saffer has done an amazing job synthesizing the chaos into an understandable, ordered reference that is a bookshelf must-have for anyone thinking of creating new designs.”— Jared Spool, CEO of User Interface EngineeringInteraction design is all around us. If you’ve ever wondered why your mobile phone looks pretty but doesn’t work well, you’ve confronted bad interaction desi...

Many aspiring game designers have crippling misconceptions about the process involved in creating a game from scratch, believing a "big idea" is all that is needed to get started. But game design requires action as well as thought, and proper training and practice to do so skillfully. In this indispensible guide, a published commercial game designer and longtime teacher offers practical instruction in the art of video and tabletop game design. The topics explored include the varying types ...

A fascinating look at Artificial Intelligence, from its humble Cold War beginnings to the dazzling future that is just around the corner.When most of us think about Artificial Intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that Artificial Intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some...

**An illuminating look at smart technology, by the legendary designer and author of The Design of Everyday Things.“Written with wit, authority and the pragmatic, everyman touch that probably made Norman so good at his job in the first place.”—BBC Focus Magazine**In The Design of Future Things, bestselling author Donald A. Norman presents a revealing examination of smart technology, from smooth-talking GPS units to cantankerous refrigerators. Explo...