1.
Game Design Workshops
Gebze, 2011

2.
ARTUR
• I’m Artur, known also as Sam-ur (yeap, read
too much Tolkien in youth). I’m also a game
designer with ~5 years of experience. My two
great passions are: games and running.

3.
• I worked on some really great projects. The most
known are:
– The Witcher (cancelled XBOX port):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShavN9hAVe8&feature
=player_detailpage
• The Witcher 2:
– The Witcher (cancelled XBOX port):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShavN9hAVe8&feature
=player_detailpage
• Anomaly: Warzone Earth (iPhone version):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1kcruB1XD0&feat
ure=player_detailpage

4.
What are my favourite games?
• I don’t really have one… But there are some
games that walk after me since the time I
played them:
• The Sting: Old game where I’m a thief
planning burglaries. This planning part is really
great and interesting game mechanic. This
also gives you total control over the time.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryivvJSyEJ
0&feature=player_detailpage

5.
• Primordial Soup: Board game in wich you play
an amoeba trying to evolve as the best specie.
It has really interestig mechanic simulating
eveolution and you have many, many
combination of genes, so almost every game
you can create something different.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRGbY2S
M7do&feature=player_detailpage

6.
• Cannon Fodder: A really old game that I
remember playing as a kid. That was a blast to
play. You’re controlling couple of army guys by
dragging your mouse around the screen and
you had to destroy enemy soldiers, trying not
to die. A truely legendary game.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ob73lgv
E0M&feature=player_detailpage

7.
Aleksander Sierżęga
• I design games 9 years. I've created many
simulation, business,
educational, video and board games. I'm a
sociologist. Graduate Institute of Applied Social
Sciences University (specialization "Negotiation,
mediation, conflict resolution".)

8.
What I do
• I'm:
 owner of Simulation Games Manufacture
 coowner of Crazy Rabbit Lab and
 coowner of Klasosfera Limited
 president of the executive board of Polish
Educational Portal „Interklasa” Foundation

9.
My projects

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I designed (not alone :) all games for the „School of
Negotiations” - one of the biggest negotiations training
school for bussines executives.
„Power manager” - board game about Renewables sources
of energy for childrens
„Proteus” - tactical training game for crysis management
teams on local level
„Crazy Rabbit Contest” for Iphone (memory/logic game)
Keri Tap Christmas” for Iphone (logic game)

10.
Favourite games


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Pac Man – yes i know :)
America's Army
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Civilization IV
Rick Dangerous (anybody remember that
one?)
Heroes of Might & Magic III

11.
What is a game?
• A game has “ends and means”: an objective, an
outcome, and a set of rules to get there. (David Parlett)
• A game has six properties: it is “free” (playing is
optional and not obligatory), “separate” (fixed in space
and time, in advance), has an uncertain outcome, is
“unproductive” (in the sense of creating neither goods
nor wealth — note that wagering transfers wealth
between players but does not create it), is governed by
rules, and is “make believe” (accompanied by an
awareness that the game is not Real Life, but is some
kind of shared separate “reality”). (Roger Callois)

12.
• Games have four properties. They are a “closed, formal
system” (this is a fancy way of saying that they have rules;
“formal” in this case means that it can be defined, not that
it involves wearing a suit and tie); they involve interaction;
they involve conflict; and they offer safety… at least
compared to what they represent (for example, American
Football is certainly not what one would call perfectly safe
— injuries are common — but as a game it is an abstract
representation of warfare, and it is certainly more safe than
being a soldier in the middle of combat). (Chris Crawford)
• Games are a “form of art in which the participants, termed
Players, make decisions in order to manage resources
through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal.” (Greg
Costikyan)

13.
• Games are a “system in which players engage in
an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results
in a quantifiable outcome” (Rules of Play by Katie
Salen and Eric Zimmerman).
• "A game is an activity among two or more
independent decision-makers seeking to achieve
their objectives in some limiting context." (Clark
C. Abt)
• Game is a set of rules and/or conditions,
established by a community, which serve as a
bounded space for play. (Corvus Elrod)

14.
What game designer does?

15.
Top iPhone games

16.
Mobile gaming? Let's see!
• http://antyweb.pl/wpcontent/uploads/2011/07/mobilnarozrywka.j
pg

17.
What makes those games so great?
• If I would know the answer I would be a rich man
;)
• But many of them are simple. When games are
simple many call them casual games, so games
for casual players.
• But iPhone game market is developing and I can
see two player groups in here: casual and
hardcore players (these are not typical PC
hardcore gamers, but they also love challenges,
even if not so big as PC’s HG).

18.
Casual Gamers
• Casual gamers are for sure the biggest group. They like simply controlled
games (i.e. in game you have to just tap). Those games should be shiny
and graphicaly pleasing. They should future some cute character. Story
isn’t needed. They should consist of micro-challanges, that is if level would
be too long the game would become boring to casual gamers. They like
challanges that they can beat in max two, maybe three tries.
• Those games should be simple to uderstand, that is the best if just y
looking at a screenshot you will know how it plays.
• They play couple of hours a day, mostly during the way to work, waiting in
restaurant, etc.
• Cut the rope
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xPUdFaraoQ&feature=player_detail
page) and Fruit Ninja
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6hUTC1Edyo&feature=player_detail
page) games are great examples of this.

19.
Hardcore Gamers
• They don’t care so much about graphics, but they
love innovative gameplays or/and some big
involving games;
• Those gamers love ports of PC/Console games;
• If they will meet big challenge they will get mad,
but in the end they will beat it;
• They play many hours a day, mostly at home
playing in time spans of hours;
• But most times on iPhone there is rather a mix of
hardcore gamer and casual gamer.

20.
Game Physical Prototypes

21.
Prototyping games
• Your every game concept should be made into
playable prototype in couple of minutes;
• Just use a piece of paper, some counters, dice
and try to connect it together with rules that
will make your game concept alive;
• It has to be playable, but not in a perfect
sense, you will worry about: balance, graphics,
number of content later on;

22.
• Making physical prototypes is fun and you will just
mechanic of the game (no graphics, no sound, no hard
things to implement);
• Also „if you can play it, you can make it”;
• By constantly prototyping, using iterating process you
develop your game faster and you can really cheap
change something or even the whole game concept;
• Programmers will know much better how this game
should looks like when they will actually play it, even if
it would be only rough prototype – it’s better then
Game Design Doc.

23.
• It’s good to keep this prototype simple, that is
firstly to implement just basic mechanics, core
gameplay and then to add just one mechanics,
playtest, see if it fits and then add next game
mechanic;
• This way it would be simpler to solve problems
with game systems, game balance, because you
will know exactly how every one mechanic works
in your game (what’s it’s purpose).
• OK. Let’s make some prototypes now!

24.
Developing Game Feel
• We know already how the gameplay plays, that is
also what’s the basic feel of the game;
• Now we have to dress this game in some ‘fency
clothes’, that is we will work on: graphics, music,
levels, interface, story, characters, etc.
• In this this stage graphic artists will create some
conepts, sketches set in the game world and
game designers will write some descriptions,
stories and they will think on levels for this game
(because levels also tell the story by themselves,
if not the most important one).