{"id":635,"date":"2021-03-12T10:07:04","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T10:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patricioland.com\/?p=635"},"modified":"2021-04-25T14:35:58","modified_gmt":"2021-04-25T14:35:58","slug":"gdd-710-week-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patricioland.com\/?p=635","title":{"rendered":"GDD 710 – Week 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This week will be an excellent opportunity to catch up on reading. I’m a kind of person with a range of interests, these go from scale model construction to video games, guitar playing, history of cinema, cartoon animation, you name it!. So my bunch of books and magazines go up and up no matter what…<\/span><\/p>\n

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When giving priority to my reading, and in relation to it, in the last few months I have been reading a lot about tabletops. I have learned about how to create them. To no one\u2019s surprise, they are very similar to those in this current course.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a book that gathers together the best of both worlds. Such book has turned out to be so thrilling and it is called Tabletop Game Design<\/strong> for Video Game Designers,<\/strong>\u00a0by Etham Ham. The author dedicates an entire chapter to each game component or style that we found both on tabletops and video games, such as playtesting, balance, turns, prototyping, stories, economies, narrative, etc. I can’t stress enough on the amount of practical information and creative challenges (based upon real tabletop games from the market) this volume contains, not to mention the interviews to dozens of well know creators.\u00a0It will keep you busy for years!<\/p>\n

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Fig 1 – Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Why tabletop games?<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can tabletop games make you a better video game designer? Tabletop and video games share numerous traits, and many of the design lessons that are learned by making and playing tabletop games can be applied to video games. Video games have the ability to hide their game mechanics. In fact, deducing a game\u2019s underlying algorithms is often the central player experience.
\nFor example, the iPhone version of Jetpack Joyride provides no directions regarding how the game works\u2014players learn how to control the jetpack (and what they should collide with and what they should avoid) through trial and error. In contrast, playing a tabletop game typically involves the players understanding every game mechanic in detail. This is because tabletop games require the players to manually determine the effect of their actions. In essence, players take on the role of a game engine\u201d (Ham 216: 2)<\/p>\n

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Another source of infinite inspiration are classic anime art books, I have plenty of them, and also movies or tv science fiction, from them my preferred are some amazing handbooks full of designs and illustrations from the old Gerry and Sylvia Anderson<\/strong> shows, like UFO, Captain Scarlet, Space 1999 and many more, as I find the vision of these shows to be dramatically ahead of their time!<\/p>\n

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Fig 2 – \u00a0Nippon Animation art book \u00a0and Inside The Worlds of Gerry Anderson art by Graham Bleathman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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When it comes to search for animation and drawing reference material I have found that the series of titles How To Think When You Draw<\/a> are a real gems, which fortunately have an free online version (from which the books have been created) accessible to everyone in a daily blog format that has been published since 2009. A fourth volume is going really well on this Kickstarter page<\/a> and some reprints of the old ones are also part of this campaign.<\/p>\n

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Fig 3 – How to Think When You Draw’ vol 2 and vol 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Fig 4 – How to Think When You Draw by Lorenzo a must have collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you’re looking for amazing textures from all kind of cultures and ages, you can’t miss this massive title by A. Racinet and A.Dupont by the name of The World of Ornament<\/strong>. This is the book you need to consult (and maybe scan) if you’re developing any kind historical game or if you’re looking for unusual inspiration for your UI. As mentioned, this one is heavy (528 pages) but you don’t need to take it with you all the time as there’s a ‘secret’ digital version included.<\/p>\n

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Fig 5- The World of Ornament<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n