This section of my blog will show some of the research that I have carried out into books. Some other pages will also have research from books, but this his research was carried out after most of the other pages were created, so I decided to list the research on its own separate page.

Rogers, S. (2014) Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd edition, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons

Chapter 2: Ideas
Page 30 – “The traditional way to get an idea is to get inspired. The good news is that a good game can come from anywhere.”

Page 30 – Page 30 of the book lists a number of methods of getting ideas for games. These ideas/methods are as follows:

“Cram your head.”
This effectively means that by watching and playing other existing media, you’ll eventually be able to form something fun and unique.

“Read something you wouldn’t normally read.”
This is to allow the writer to get inspiration from something different, with the aim of the final outcome/formed idea being more unique, and not the same as everything else that already exists/is currently out on the market.

“Take a walk, drive, or shower.”
The reasoning for this method is that when driving or carrying out an activity, the active part of the brain is busy focusing on the task at hand, allowing your subconscious to make connections you wouldn’t normally make (Rogers. 2014)
“Attend a lecture.”
Attending conferences (Game Developer Conference) is a successful method of picking up, but also sharing ideas with other game developers.

“Play a game, preferably a bad one.”
By playing existing video games you can look into the features that were carried out effectively. Additionally, by playing a bad video game you’d be able to pick out on areas that could be improved.

“Play a different game.”
Instead of just playing video games, playing different kinds of games, such as tabletop games is a good source of inspiration, as they often take a different approach to games than video games.

Brainstorming
Page 36 – “First, there is no such thing as a stupid or bad idea. Say yes to everything at this stage. Make sure you collaborate with people from other disciplines than game design – programmers, artists, testers, writers. The more diverse your brainstorming group is, the better.”

Chapter 3: Writing the story
Basic structure is shown as images (PAGES 43-47)
































































Creating Characters Your Player Cares About.
Page 58 – “In games, the first act is this is usually told with a cutscene or, even worse, the game’s manual – which no one ever reads! The second act is the grind that moves the player toward the third act, which is the completion of the story, usually the last level and a boss fight.”

Chapter 9: Everything I learned About Level Design, I learned from Level 9
Illusional Narrative
Page 236 – “Illusional narrative is the video game equivalent of what happens in the gutter of comic book panels or between edits in a movie: players fill in story when given the two or more images or environments.”

Chapter 17: Cutscenes, or No One’s Gonna Watch ‘Em Anyway
Page 440 – “A cutscene is an animated or liveaction sequence used to advance the story; create spectacle; provide atmosphere, dialogue, and character development; and reveal clues that players would otherwise miss during gameplay.”