Re: Business models

["Mark Collins" <me@thisisnurgle.org.uk>]

> However, I *still* think we lack a book that says something like:
>
>    "OK, so you know C++, you grok OpenGL, OpenAL,
>     PLIB and SDL - so we won't waste space talking
>     about them. Now here is how you go about writing:
>          * A car racing game,
>          * A first-person shooter,
>          * A soccer game,
>          * A flight sim,
>          * A puzzle game...


The Prima series does have some genre specific titles (there's one dedicated
to Isometric games available atm), but they are targetted at DirectX.
However,. they should be reletively easy to follow. (And you had to mention
soccer, didn't you?). If you fancy writing again, maybe you should email
Jody and present your ideas to her (you would have to keep it generic if you
did though, i.e. platform independant)...

>     ...three whole chapters on each genre!  Chapters on
>          * What the intro screen should do for you
>          * When to offer 'save game' options
>          * Rewards for completing the game..providing
>            something else to do once it's "completed"
>          * Metagaming avoidance strategies
>          * Grading the difficulty of game levels
>          * Speedups and collectables
>          * How to stop the music from becoming annoying
>          * Controls: Mouse, Keyboard or Joystick?"

Game Architecture and Design by Rollings and Morris actually cover most of
those aspects. It doesn't get into much code (except the last part, which is
more architecture (OO methodologies and the like)), but does cover pretty
much all of the design aspects you mention above. (They're not really
programming things, because each game will have different ideas behind it,
and you don't want to force one designers idea onto anothers. That's just
asking for trouble).

Nurgle


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