Skip to Content
Practical Game Design
book

Practical Game Design

by Adam Kramarzewski, Ennio De Nucci
April 2018
Beginner content levelBeginner
476 pages
14h 4m
English
Packt Publishing
Content preview from Practical Game Design

Lock and key

Lock and key is a widespread, but somewhat controversial design practice. The basic implementation includes a literal use of a lock and key. You restrict access to a certain area (or reward) until players find the key. To do so, they need to venture elsewhere and complete a set of tasks, advancing the storyline or their character.

Turning away your players and asking them to come back later is a form of so-called backtracking. There is value to it but you have to be careful as extensive backtracking and having to manage a list of uncompleted areas can be incredibly frustrating.

One obvious use is to prolong your content's lifespan. You may have spent a long time crafting a beautiful set-piece or a highly functional area, and ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Practical Game Design - Second Edition

Practical Game Design - Second Edition

Adam Kramarzewski, Ennio De Nucci
Game Design Essentials

Game Design Essentials

Briar Lee Mitchell
Designing Games

Designing Games

Tynan Sylvester

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781787121799Other