Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

� Focused experimentation and revision
� Draw on assembly or “crunch” behaviors
One thing I love about puzzle games is that they are typically “light” on art assets.
This is not to say that a puzzle game cannot have complex art requirements. It simply
means that, compared to many other genres, the laundry list of art requirements is
generally shorter in length. Figure 5-3 demonstrates a simple yet highly addictive
puzzle game built for a cell phone.
Put another way, you need fewer art assets to build a simple puzzle game. This is
very good news for small developers, and for those just starting out in gaming. One
or two people can build a world-class puzzle game. It would be next to impossible for
one or two people to build a world-class third-person action game from scratch (and
be finished by the end of the millennium). Puzzle games generally require puzzle
pieces, such as blocks, widgets, shapes, or gizmos of some kind. Once you have built
FIGURE 5-3
Puzzle game for cell phone
C H A P T E R 5
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Design by Genre