Create Computer Games: Design and Build Your Own Game

PUT DOWN YOUR CONTROLLER Why just play videogames when you can build your own game? Follow the steps in this book to learn a little about code, build a few graphics, and piece together a real game you can share with your friends. Who knows? What you learn here could help you become the next rock-star video- game designer. So set your controller aside and get ready to create! Decipher the code ? build some basic knowledge of how computer code drives videogames Get animated ? create simple graphics and learn how to put them in motion Update a classic ? put your knowledge together to put your modern twist on a classic game

Table of Contents:
Introduction ix About This Book ix Foolish Assumptions ix Icons Used in This Book x Where to Go from Here x Chapter 1: What Is Game Design? 1 Thinking about What Makes Fun Games Fun 2 Asking the Right Questions before You Begin 4 Creating Your Game on Paper 7 Chapter 2: Unity: The Software You’ll Use to Build Your Game 9 Getting Organized 10 Creating a New File 12 Understanding How Unity Is Laid Out 12 Navigating the Scene 16 Creating a Game Object 17 Creating and Using Prefabs 20 Chapter 3: Creating Level 1 23 Understanding the Importance of Level 1 24 Designing Your First Level 25 Creating the Gray-Box Level 29 Giving Your Level Objective and Direction 37 Chapter 4: Camera, Character, and Controls 41 The Three Cs of Game Development 42 Creating a Character Stand-In 44 Thinking about Code 46 Adding Rigidbody Component and Understanding Box Colliders 48 Coding Your Player 50 Coding Advanced Movement 57 Coding Pickup 60 Creating Tags and a User Interface 64 Coding Your Camera 67 Chapter 5: Making Your “Game” into a Game 71 Thinking About What a Game Is 72 Creating and Coding Your Obstacles 74 Creating Respawn Points 81 Coding Respawn Points 87 Chapter 6: Play Testing 91 Defining Play Testing 92 Knowing When to Start Play Testing 93 Deciding Who Should Play Test Your Game 93 Knowing What to Look For 94 Handling Feedback 96 Finding the Problems in Your Game 96 Chapter 7: Fixing and Adjusting Your Game 99 Turning Criticism into Construction 100 Punishing Your Player Less 101 Creating a User Interface Tutorial 102 Preventing Wall Climbing with Raytracing 105 Chapter 8: Animating in Blender 107 Mixing Things Up with Blender 108 Downloading Blender 108 Opening Blender for the First Time 109 Creating a New File in Blender 111 Figuring Out the Blender Interface 111 Navigating the Interface 117 Editing Your Object 120 Chapter 9: Creating Your Assets 129 Thinking about Theme and Style 130 Creating Your First Character 133 Creating the Enemy Grunt 140 Creating an Environmental Hazard 144 Creating the Coin Pickups 153 Customizing on Your Own 157 Chapter 10: Animating Your Characters 159 Defining Animation 160 Learning Animation 160 Animating Your Player Character 165 Animating the Enemy Grunt 179 Animating the Environmental Hazard 183 Animating a Moving Platform 186 Animating the Coins 188 Chapter 11: Coloring and Lighting Your Game Level 191 Changing the Ground Color 192 Editing the Environmental Lighting 195 Understanding Lighting 197 Creating Fog 200 Chapter 12: Importing Your Characters into Your Game 203 Fixing Your Player Character for Importing into Unity 204 Importing Your Player Character into Unity 207 Importing the Other Characters and Objects 219 Chapter 13: Play Testing (Again) 227 Testing the Second Time 228 Fixing Your Game 230 Wrapping Up the Noticeable Issues 233 Chapter 14: Finalizing Your Game 235 Creating Multiple Levels 236 Resetting the Level 239 Exporting Your Game 242 Continuing Your Game Design 243