Players making decisions : game design essentials and the art of understanding your players / Zack Hiwiller.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part 1. Getting started -- 1. What Is a Game Designer? -- Responsibilities of a Game Designer -- Attributes of a Game Designer -- Make Things -- Cultivate Your Gardens -- On Ontology and Dogma -- Formalism -- Summary -- 2. Problem Statements -- Defining the Problem -- Low-Hanging Fruit -- Functional Fixedness -- Brainstorming -- Summary -- 3. Development Structures -- Production Methodologies -- Scope -- Summary -- 4. Starting Practices -- Analog Games -- Theme and Mechanics -- Next Steps -- Designing for Others -- Opening Questions -- Summary -- Part 2. Prototypes and playtesting -- 5. Paper Prototyping Development Techniques -- Software and Materials -- Art -- Cards -- InDesign Data Merge -- Summary -- 6. Playtesting -- Playtesting Goals -- Playtesting Benefits -- Listening to Feedback -- Finding Playtesters -- Iterating -- Summary --

7. Playtesting Methods -- The Testing Environment -- Keep Playtesters Talking -- A/B Testing -- Self-Playtesting -- Summary -- 8. Prototypes and Intellectual Property -- Do I Need an NDA? -- Ideas and Value -- Summary -- Part 3. Meaningful decisions -- 9. Flow and the Fundamental Game Design Directive -- Game Flow -- Interest Curves -- Learning Curves -- Individual Differences -- Summary -- 10. Decision-Making -- Player Agency -- Anatomy of a Choice -- Less-Interesting Decision-Making -- More-Interesting Decision-Making Summar -- Summary -- 11. Randomness -- Completely Random Games -- Completely Skill-Based Games -- Fairness and Mitigating Randomness -- Summary -- 12. Goals -- How Players Determine Game Goals -- Criteria for Goals -- Solving Goal Problems -- Summary -- Part 4. Describling game elements -- 13. Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics (MDA) -- What Are Games About? -- MDA -- More Dynamics -- Summary -- 14. Milieu -- What Is Milieu? -- Polish -- Player Types -- Motivation -- Milieu as Design Focus -- Summary -- 15. Rules and Verbs -- Rules -- Qualities of Rules -- Types of Rules -- Verbs -- Summary -- 16. Balance -- Symmetry -- Self-Balancing Mechanisms -- Progression and Numeric Relationships -- Balance Heuristics -- Summary -- 17. Feedback Loops -- Positive Feedback Loops -- Negative Feedback Loops -- Feedback Loops in Action -- Fixing Problems -- Summary -- 18. Puzzle Design -- What Is a Puzzle? -- Possibility Space -- Breadcrumbs -- Features of Ineffective Puzzles -- Types of Puzzles -- Other Puzzle Types -- Summary -- Part 5. Game theory and reational decision-making -- 19. Equilibria in Normal Form Games -- The Prisoner's Dilemma -- Solving Games Using Strict Dominance -- Using (and Abusing) Dominance -- Zero-Sum Games -- Stag Hunt and Coordination -- Determining Nash Equilibria in a Larger Matrix -- Mixed Strategies -- Stag Hunt Redux -- Summary -- 20. Sequential and Iterated Games -- Game Trees -- Promises and Commitment Problems -- Iterated Games -- Experimenting with Strategies -- Successful Strategies -- Summary -- 21. Problems with Game Theory -- Rational Actors -- The Dollar Auction -- The "Guess Two-Thirds" Game -- Second-Price Auctions -- Summary -- 22. Marginal Decision Analysis -- Marginal Nuggets -- Balance on Margins -- Summary --

Part 6. Human behavior in games -- 23. Behaviorism and Schedules of Reinforcement -- Operant Conditioning -- Schedules of Reinforcement -- Anticipation and Uncertainty -- Ethical and Practical Concerns -- Summary -- 24. Learning and Constructivism -- Historic Approaches -- Novices and Experts -- Cognitive Load -- Expertise Reversal Effect -- Split-Attention Effect -- Tutorials and Learning Design -- Summary -- 25. Motivation -- Two Types of Motivation -- What's the Problem with Rewards? -- Self-Determination Theory and Challenges -- Competition and Motivation -- Personality -- Other Motivation Effects -- Summary -- 26. Human Decision-Making -- Mental Shortcuts -- A ttribution Errors -- Misunderstanding Randomness -- Anchoring and Adjustment -- Understanding Value in Uncertain Situations -- Loss -- Framing Decisions -- Summary -- 27. Attention and Memory -- Attention -- Memory -- Helping with Memory Limitations -- Perception -- Summary -- Part 7. Game design tools -- 28. Documentation and Written Communication -- The Game Design Document -- The GDD Creation Process -- References -- Documentation for Tabletop Games -- States and Flowcharts -- Summary -- 29. Probability -- Probability Is Fancy Counting -- Adding Die Rolls -- Example: The H/T Game -- Being Careful -- Summary -- 30. Spreadsheets for Simulation -- Why Use Spreadsheets? -- Basics -- Formulas -- Goal Seek and Solver in Excel -- One-Way Data Tables -- Summary -- 31. Monte Carlo Simulation -- Answering Design Questions -- Hot Hand -- Monty Hall -- Once Around the Board -- Martingale Betting -- Summary -- 32. Presenting Ideas -- The Thesis -- Text on Slides -- Data-Ink -- Do Not Waste Time -- Documentation -- Acquiring Images -- Example: State of Mobile Games 2014 -- Risk -- Risk Analysis -- Pitch Questions -- Summary -- Part 8. The game design business -- 33. Profit, Loss, and Metrics -- Profit and Loss -- Metrics -- Virality -- Cash Flow -- Summary -- 34. Sustainable Lifestyles -- Life in AAA Digital Game Development -- Life as an Independent Developer of Digital Games -- Life in Tabletop Game Development -- Market Luck -- Summary.