Practical Game Design

Game structure

To have any chance of scoping and sizing your game accurately, you first need to define its structure. For the purpose of this book, the structure refers to the way different segments of the game all link together and the journey players take during play.

With the structure defined, it becomes much easier to divide the game into independent sections and assess the size, complexity, and dependencies of various parts of your game.

As a designer, you need to decide on the player's journey and the experience you're offering. Do you foresee a single predestined path through your game? Is it branching? Or perhaps you only want to provide the players with various tools and let them take things from there? Is the experience designed ...