Computer Game desiGner By don rauf and monique Vescia Virtual Apprentice: Computer Game Designer Copyright © 2008 by Bright Futures Press All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. Ferguson An imprint of Infobase Publishing, Inc. 132 West 31st Street New York, NY 10001 ISBN-10: 0-8160-6754-6 ISBN-13: 978-0-8160-6754-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rauf, Don. Virtual apprentice : computer game designer / Don Rauf and Monique Vescia. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-8160-6754-1 (hc : alk. paper) 1. Computer games — Programming. 2. Computer games — Programming — Vocational guidance. 3. Electronic games industry — United States. I. Vescia, Monique. II. Title. QA76.76.C672R39 2007 794.8’1526--dc22 2006036565 Ferguson books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Ferguson on the World Wide Web at http://www.fergpubco.com Produced by Bright Futures Press (http://www.brightfuturespress.com) Series created by Diane Lindsey Reeves Interior design by Tom Carling, carlingdesign.com Cover design by Salvatore Luongo Photo Credits: Table of Contents Vaughn Youtz/ZUMA/Corbis; Page 5 Tomasz Trogranowski; Page 7 Jaimie Duplass; Page 8 Audrey Armvagov; Page 10 Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis; Page 15 Jacob Wackerhuasen; Page 16 JupiterImages; Page 23 phdpsx; Page 24 Jamie Cross; Page 27 Floris Leeuwenberg/The Cover Story/Corbis; Page 31 Florea Marius Catalin; Page 32 Lee Morris; Page 34 Vaughn Youtz/ZUMA/Corbis; Page 36 Serge Krouglikoff/zefa/Corbis; Page 39 Losevsky Pavel; Page 41 Matt Bien; Page 42 Alexander Mot- renko; Page 43 Matt Bien; Page 44 Matt Bien; Page 45 JupiterImages; Page 47 Matt Bien; Page 51 Matt Bien. Note to Readers: Please note that every effort was made to include accurate Web site addresses for kid-friendly resources listed throughout this book. However, Web site content and addresses change often and the author and publisher of this book cannot be held accountable for any inappropriate material that may appear on these Web sites. In the interest of keeping your on-line exploration safe and appropriate, we strongly suggest that all Internet searches be conducted under the supervision of a parent or other trusted adult. Printed in the United States of America Bang PKG 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book printed on acid-free paper. Contents 4 introduCtion Welcome to the World of the Game Designer! Get Ready for Action 6 CHapter 1 Game Designer at Work 14 CHapter 2 Game Design Tech and Trends 22 CHapter 3 Game Designer in Training 30 CHapter 4 The “Players” Who Bring Games to Life 38 CHapter 5 Kids Ask, Game Designers Answer 50 CHapter 6 Computer Game Designer for a Day 56 CHapter 7 62 appendiX More Resources for Game Designers 64 indeX i n t r o d u C t i o n Firing lasers, defeating muscle-bound monsters, scoring high points, and winning the game. It’s just another day at the offi ce for computer game designers. You al- ready know that playing video games is fun. But what’s it like to actually create one? Is designing computer games really as fun as it sounds? There’s no doubt about it: Game design is a creative and exciting fi eld. But (you knew there’d be a “but” didn’t you?) it also takes a lot of hard work to take a game from an idea that pops into your head while eating breakfast to a multi-million- dollar product for sale at stores throughout the world. Game design is a lot like moviemaking—it combines a wide range of different skills and talents. Artists draw and animate the characters. Writers develop the story lines and scripts. Audio engineers record the sound effects and put in the mu- sic. Programmers build the software and computer codes that make the games run. Designers themselves often know a little bit about all these things, and they come from very diverse backgrounds. Some started as animators; some were game tes- ters; some were even hockey players as you’ll discover in one of the interviews included in chapter fi ve. 4 The one thing all game designers want is to make a good game that players will enjoy so much that they keep coming back for more. The trick is that the game can’t be too hard and it can’t be too easy. “Good video games are long, complex, and difficult,” says James Paul Gee, author of the book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. “But if children couldn’t figure out how to play them, and have fun doing so, game designers would soon go out of business.” Do you have what it takes to be a game designer? Play around with the idea a bit. Read this book, do the activities, take the quizzes, and find out what it’s really like to be a computer game designer. Who knows? You could someday become one of the top scorers in the game biz. Imagine a job where you play computer games all day long!  C H a p t e r 1 You’ve found it at last: Buried under a wild tangle of vines, the ancient temple of Thurl still stands as a crumbling monument to a long-lost civilization. It is also Find out the lair of Ja-Krill, leader of a race of evil lemur-men you have more sworn to destroy...before they destroy you! The mossy stones echo as you climb the temple steps with your only remaining weapons—a double-edged thunder ax and the magical amu- What will they let of Vir, which helped restore your health after your nearly think about us 100 fatal battle with the vampire monkeys. A twig snaps behind years from now you, and suddenly a massive purple-clawed beast hurtles out when an archaeolo- gist discovers one of of the undergrowth, aiming for your throat! But your refl exes today’s most popular are swift, and the thunder ax fi nds its mark. As the hideous video games? Pretend you are there a beast crumples at your feet, a glowing message appears in the century from now air above your head: CONGRATULATIONS! GO TO THE and describe people’s NEXT LEVEL. reactions. What do computer games say This fantastic otherworld of danger and excitement is the about our current brainchild of a person called a game designer, who imagined it culture? all—every vicious boss monster, every dancing cactus and su- per-strength-giving mushroom, every possible strategy and even the smallest detail associated with the weird fantasy realm you immerse yourself in every day when you get home from school. 6 video game “I think a all is about dream articulating a .” —Mark Meadows, artist, writer, and gaMe developer As game designer Mark Meadows says, “I think a video game is all about articulating a dream.” Think getting paid to play games all day and conjure up fan- tastic scenarios like this one sounds like the most awesome career on earth? A lot of game designers would agree with you, but they Some of your favorite board games have gone high-tech.  Virtual apprentice: Comp uter Game d esi Gner would also say that they work really hard at what they do, logging in long hours at the computer screen. Let’s find out what it’s really like to dream up another world and make it a reality. ancient Gamers The need of human beings to challenge themselves by playing games might be nearly as basic as their need for food, shel- ter, and sleep. Archaeologists have un- earthed artifacts of games such as Manca- la, a 3,500-year-old game that originated in ancient Africa—which you can still find on the shelves of many toy stores—and something called “the Royal Game of Ur” because no one knows what the Sumeri- ans who actually played the game 4,500 years ago called it. The Egyptian board game of Senet, a version of which people still play today, was popular as far back as Tomb Raider is a popular computer game 2,600 B.C. that inspired a movie. Games, which fulfill an important so- cial function in our development, have grown and evolved along with human culture. In fact, as many sociologists will tell you, you can learn a lot about a culture by looking at the games people like to play. Today’s high-tech com- puter games have more in common with ancient board games than you might expect. Many electronic games, such as Sid Mei- er’s Civilization (voted the number-one best game of all time by Computer Gaming World magazine), are based on board games, with the difference that the computer rather than a second player serves as the opponent. the Game that started it all Electronic games developed along with computers, increasing in speed and complexity in step with rapidly evolving technolo- gies. The great-granddaddy of all today’s computer games was called Spacewar!, developed in 1961 by Steve Russell, a Massa-  Get ready for action chusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student, whose nickname was “Slug.” In Russell’s two-player game, each person maneuvers a spaceship and fi res missiles at the other player’s ship while trying to avoid the gravitational pull of the sun. Spacewar! ran on a computer the size of a vending machine that cost $120,000 but had only 4k of memory. (In 2006, most handheld game con- soles cost about $100 and feature 2,000 times more memory!) Spacewar! was the world’s fi rst fully interactive video game, and it caused a huge sensation at MIT’s annual Science Open House in 1962. Fast forward to the next millennium! Computer games recent- CHeCK it ly celebrated their 40th birthday. Who knew in 1962 that in just a few decades they would explode into a multibillion-dollar indus- out try, which would one day surpass movie box-offi ce receipts? In fact, some of the people who developed the fi rst electronic games didn’t even bother to copyright their designs. To get an idea of how important video games have become, consider this: Video Civilization games and movies were once seen as two entirely separate forms is a single-player of entertainment. Then came video games whose characters and turn-based strategy plots were adapted for movies such as Tomb Raider: The Movie, game in which the Mortal Kombat, and Resident Evil. objective is to build Gaming Visionaries an empire from the ground up. The most The history of video game design is a story of individuals who recent version of this were able to imagine fantastic possibilities and then, with cre- game, Civilization ativity and patience, make those fantasies real. People like Ralph IV, came out in late Baer, a young engineer who wondered why a television couldn’t 2005. have a game built into it. Or Nolan Bushnell, who spent a sum- mer working in a carnival arcade and began to dream of a whole arcade fi lled with computer games. Bushnell went on to design an arcade version of Spacewar! called Computer Space, which debuted in 1970. Then Bushnell helped start the fi rst video game company, called Atari, which is Japanese for “check” in the game of Go. In 1972, Atari came out with Pong, essentially an electron- ic ping-pong game. Players used “paddles” (small bars on each side of the screen) to bat a tiny ball back and forth until some- body missed. Pong was incredibly simple...and incredibly addic- tive. When Atari market-tested the game at a local bar, the owner called to complain that the coin slot was jammed with quarters 9