I'm a 50% time Senior Lecturer at Uppsala University (Campus Gotland). Please don't ask for free copies of my books! I can't give them away. Phone: +44-7780-660753
The third edition of Fundamentals of Game Design has been updated to address the explosive growth... more The third edition of Fundamentals of Game Design has been updated to address the explosive growth of the casual and mobile markets, the Kinect, and many other changes that have taken place in the last four years. Part 2 of the second edition, the chapters about game genres, have been moved out to E-books to make room for all the new material.
This thesis addresses a number of related problems that have long been the subject of debate amon... more This thesis addresses a number of related problems that have long been the subject of debate among theorists and practitioners of interactive storytelling. Foremost among them are two, the Problem of Internal Consistency and the Problem of Narrative Flow, that are caused by a perceived tension between a player’s desire for interactive freedom and agency, and an interactive story designer’s ability to offer a coherent story-like experience. The thesis shows how the problems arise from faulty, and often unstated, assumptions about what the ideal interactive storytelling experience should be like. I propose a new schema for understanding the relationship between the player and the designer, and for understanding the player’s role in creating his own experience. According to this schema, the player accepts a degree of responsibility for the coherence of his own experience, which is directly proportional to the degree of freedom that the software offers him. The problems are thus resolved.
The thesis also discusses a variety of other issues related to interactive storytelling that I have considered over the years: the fact that players are often expected to enact a character who knows more about the story world than the player actually does, which I call the Problem of Amnesia; the overloading of the term conflict; a false analogy between dramatic tension and gameplay tension; an idea called a credibility budget, which I suggest as a possible feature of a future automated story-generation system; some emotional consequences for players that attend implementation of agency by various means; and certain challenges that face development of a semiotics for video games.
The thesis concludes with a template and guide to writing a requirements specification for interactive storytelling experiences. I present arguments for the value of requirements specifications as design tools both for practitioners and for students.
Game mechanics are the rules, processes, and data at the heart of a game. They define how play pr... more Game mechanics are the rules, processes, and data at the heart of a game. They define how play progresses, what happens when, and what conditions determine victory or defeat. Now two leading authorities in game design—Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans—are here to teach game designers and students alike the essentials of game mechanics.
This in-depth resource teaches you to craft mechanics that generate challenging, enjoyable, and well-balanced gameplay. You’ll discover at what stages to prototype, test, and implement mechanics in games and learn how to visualize and simulate game mechanics in order to design better games. Along the way, you’ll practice what you’ve learned with hands-on lessons. A free downloadable simulation tool developed by Joris Dormans is also available in order to follow along with exercises in the book in an easy-to-use graphical environment.
"Three years after the publication of Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design (and six ye... more "Three years after the publication of Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design (and six years after first we started writing that book), it’s time for another edition. But this version contains so much new material that Prentice-Hall gave it a new title as well, Fundamentals of Game Design . The earlier book caught on as a textbook, and we have added more features to help instructors and students. It now has multiple choice questions and exercises at the end of every chapter. We’ve also kept the worksheets of questions to ask yourself about your design, which were a popular feature of the older work. In fact, we put in so much new stuff that we had to move two of the chapters from the old book (Online Games and The Future of Gaming) onto the new Companion Website at Prentice-Hall.
Fundamentals is more rigorous than Rollings and Adams was, and more comprehensive. It now includes more formal definitions of such important concepts as gameplay, core mechanics, interaction models, and the storytelling engine. We have also increased our emphasis on design process, with more how-to information than the earlier book had. We’ve written four new chapters, a glossary, and an appendix, and expanded our discussion in a number of places."
Rollings and Adams on Game Design is divided into two parts. The first section of the book deals ... more Rollings and Adams on Game Design is divided into two parts. The first section of the book deals with fundamental principles: concept creation, game worlds, storytelling, character development, gameplay, and core mechanics. In the second half, we examine how the key elements of game design are implemented in each of the major genres: action, strategy, role-playing, sports, vehicle simulations, construction & management simulations, and adventure games. There is also a chapter on several minor genres, and a separate chapter on online games. The last chapter is blue-sky speculation about the future of gaming.
Appendix A includes a detailed discussion of the three types of design documents a professional game designer is most likely to need to make: high concepts, game treatments, and full design scripts.
Even text adventures include a physical dimension. The player moves from one abstract" room" or o... more Even text adventures include a physical dimension. The player moves from one abstract" room" or other discrete location to another. Back when more people played text adventures, the boxes used to carry proud boasts about the number of rooms in the game. Gamers could take this as a very rough measure of the size of the world they could explore in the game and, therefore, the amount of gameplay that the game offered.
ABSTRACT Most modern graphics-based computer games entertain the player in part by presenting him... more ABSTRACT Most modern graphics-based computer games entertain the player in part by presenting him or her with a simulated space, an imaginary two- or three-dimensional region whose visual appearance is mapped onto the two-dimensional surface of the video screen. The player observes this space and sometimes virtually explores or moves through it in the course of playing the game.
This is a short formal paper on how computer games can assist teachers, and more importantly, wha... more This is a short formal paper on how computer games can assist teachers, and more importantly, what educators and commercial designers each need to know about the other in order to work together effectively.
Break into the Game Industry: How to Get a Job Making Video Games
Find out from an industry veteran exactly what you need to do to become a game designer, tester, ... more Find out from an industry veteran exactly what you need to do to become a game designer, tester, artist, producer, programmer, writer, soundtrack composer, videographer, or sales/marketing professional. You'll get full-spectrum coverage of positions available within the game industry as well as details on how a game is created from start to finish and much more.
A personal overview of things to do and not do in game development higher education, based on my ... more A personal overview of things to do and not do in game development higher education, based on my experiences as a visiting professor at several different institutions.
In this lecture I take a second look at the role of challenges in gameplay - how they construct t... more In this lecture I take a second look at the role of challenges in gameplay - how they construct the player's experience and affect his or her emotional response to the game. Starting with a new proposal for determining the difficulty of a challenge, I go on to question the assumption that games should be challenging at all, and make a case for other forms of computerized play beyond the traditional challenge-achievement-reward structure. I also addresses the effect of challenges on storytelling, and discusses how different mechanisms for influencing the plot of a story produce different feelings in the player. The lecture ends with a suggestion for a unifying meta-approach to interactive storytelling that obviates all the debate about the "right way" to do it.
Over the winter of 2005-2006 I substantially revised my thinking about interactive storytelling, ... more Over the winter of 2005-2006 I substantially revised my thinking about interactive storytelling, and this lecture presents the results. I start by discussing three key assumptions that have held us back for years: that an interactive story should be a universal sandbox; that an interactive story will not have an internal economy; and that in a computer game, the player need not know the rules. I then introduce Ken Perlin’s Law, a mechanism that provides the solution for the Problem of Internal Consistency that I highlighted in The Challenge of the Interactive Movie. Next I propose a new approach to designing interactive stories, by treating the player as a role-player (regardless of genre) and following up the implications of that choice. The second half of the lecture looks a game that takes an entirely different tack on interactive storytelling, King of Dragon Pass from A-Sharp. It abandons the branching tree structure and treats situations as functions and characters as parameters to those functions. I show how neither the branching tree nor the pure social simulator will do the job, but King of Dragon Pass creates a hybrid that may be the future of interactive storytelling.
"Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels.... more "Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels." Women game developers must also work backwards and in high heels -- backwards because they are usually developing games for a male market; in high heels because they are often impeded by a masculine development culture. In this lecture, I look at the past and future of women in gaming: what they contributed to the early development of the medium and how they will change it in the 21st century. I examine several different aspects of the question, including the way women are portrayed in games; women as designers and developers; and the wants and needs of the female player.
Interactive Narratives Revisited: Ten Years of Research
At the 1995 Game Developers’ Conference, I gave a lecture called “The Challenge of the Interactiv... more At the 1995 Game Developers’ Conference, I gave a lecture called “The Challenge of the Interactive Movie”. That lecture listed a number of theoretical problems with interactive narratives as I understood them at the time. This lecture is a retrospective over the last ten years, examining the work done by both the industry and the academy. It highlights some advances, some failures, and re-examines the problems to see if they are still relevant today.
Advances in computer entertainment will take place on three major fronts over the next half-centu... more Advances in computer entertainment will take place on three major fronts over the next half-century. These fronts are: technological advancement; demographic and market changes; and aesthetic development of the medium. This lecture examines each in turn, highlighting the key changes that we can expect to take place, and how they will affect the way we make and sell interactive entertainment.
This lecture is a theoretical discussion of the historical, social and technological forces that ... more This lecture is a theoretical discussion of the historical, social and technological forces that produced the contemporary culture of computer game design and development. Although game design might seem to be primarily about making successful commercial products, in fact the subjects we choose to explore in our games are not necessarily dictated by the market, but are the product of our own peculiar philosophical origins. As digital technologists we work with the classical tools of logic and order; as creative people we strive for the expression of romantic ideals. This tension between the classic and the romantic sides of our medium is the source of some of our more intractable creative problems. This lecture is not intended to offer specific solutions, but to enlighten and entertain.
Exploring the Fringes: Interactive Entertainment for the 21st Century
This lecture is a survey of the various activities taking place on the fringes of the commercial ... more This lecture is a survey of the various activities taking place on the fringes of the commercial video game industry. Many are experimental, and could lead the way to new forms of interactive entertainment that will be significant in the new century. Among the areas examined are the formal art world; the machinima movement; the demo scene; the interactive fiction movement; text MUDs and MUSHes; and the use of computer games for particular ends other than entertainment: religious, health education, subversion, political propaganda, and so on. Illustrated with numerous slides.
The game industry defines games in a reductionist way, in terms of players, rules, and a victory ... more The game industry defines games in a reductionist way, in terms of players, rules, and a victory condition. Society has a much more vague definition. Games connote childhood, pretending, play, and insignificance. This lecture examines some of the limitations of the “game” concept and the constraints it imposes on our creativity. It concludes by advocating the creation of a new paradigm for works in the interactive medium.
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Books by Ernest Adams
The thesis also discusses a variety of other issues related to interactive storytelling that I have considered over the years: the fact that players are often expected to enact a character who knows more about the story world than the player actually does, which I call the Problem of Amnesia; the overloading of the term conflict; a false analogy between dramatic tension and gameplay tension; an idea called a credibility budget, which I suggest as a possible feature of a future automated story-generation system; some emotional consequences for players that attend implementation of agency by various means; and certain challenges that face development of a semiotics for video games.
The thesis concludes with a template and guide to writing a requirements specification for interactive storytelling experiences. I present arguments for the value of requirements specifications as design tools both for practitioners and for students.
This in-depth resource teaches you to craft mechanics that generate challenging, enjoyable, and well-balanced gameplay. You’ll discover at what stages to prototype, test, and implement mechanics in games and learn how to visualize and simulate game mechanics in order to design better games. Along the way, you’ll practice what you’ve learned with hands-on lessons. A free downloadable simulation tool developed by Joris Dormans is also available in order to follow along with exercises in the book in an easy-to-use graphical environment.
Fundamentals is more rigorous than Rollings and Adams was, and more comprehensive. It now includes more formal definitions of such important concepts as gameplay, core mechanics, interaction models, and the storytelling engine. We have also increased our emphasis on design process, with more how-to information than the earlier book had. We’ve written four new chapters, a glossary, and an appendix, and expanded our discussion in a number of places."
Appendix A includes a detailed discussion of the three types of design documents a professional game designer is most likely to need to make: high concepts, game treatments, and full design scripts.
Papers by Ernest Adams
Talks by Ernest Adams