1st Edition
End-to-End Game Development Creating Independent Serious Games and Simulations from Start to Finish
You're part of a new venture, an independent gaming company, and you are about to undertake your first development project. The client wants a serious game, one with instructional goals and assessment metrics. Or you may be in a position to green light such a project yourself, believing that it can advance your organization's mission and goals. This book provides a proven process to take an independent game project from start to finish.
In order to build a successful game, you need to wear many hats. There are graphic artists, software engineers, designers, producers, marketers - all take part in the process at various (coordinated) stages, and the end result is hopefully a successful game. Veteran game producers and writers (Iuppa and Borst) cover all of these areas for you, with step by step instructions and checklists to get the work done.
The final section of the book offers a series of case studies from REAL indy games that have been developed and launched succesfully, and show exactly how the principles outlined in the book can be applied to real world products.
The book's associated author web site offers ancillary materials & references as well as serious game demos and presentations.
End to End Game Development
Introduction
Defining Independent Games, Serious Games and Simulations
Setting Up Game Development
Client Management
From Start to Finish: A Walk-Through
Step 1: Determining Project Goals
Needs Analysis:
Task Analysis:
Instructional Design:
Ongoing Documentation:
Step 2: Game Design
Determining Simulation Activities:
Concept Testing, Refinement and Documentation:
Determining Platforms and Tools:
Team Building:
Game Design vs. Instructional Design:
Step 3: Production and Authoring
Media production:
Programming:
Testing and Refining:
Project Management:
Step 4: The Finish Line
Packaging and Distribution:
Assessments:
Your Game - Version 2.0:
Case Studies
Games for Social Change:
Occupational Training Games:
Leadership and Collaboration Games:
Educational Games:
Indy Games:
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Biography
Terry Borst is a Writers Guild of America member with credits in feature films, episodic television, and videogames, including the award-winning WING COMMANDER III and WING COMMANDER IV, and Microsoft's space adventure game FREELANCER. He has also taught screenwriting and multimedia design at UCLA, USC, the College of Santa Fe, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Moorpark College and various conferences and workshops.
