Better Game Characters by Design (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3d Technology)

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Product Description

Games are poised for a major evolution, driven by growth in technical sophistication and audience reach. Characters that create powerful social and emotional connections with players throughout the game-play itself (not just in cut scenes) will be essential to next-generation games. However, the principles of sophisticated character design and interaction are not widely understood within the game development community. Further complicating the situation are powerful gender and cultural issues that can influence perception of characters. Katherine Isbister has spent the last 10 years examining what makes interactions with computer characters useful and engaging to different audiences. This work has revealed that the key to good design is leveraging player psychology: understanding what's memorable, exciting, and useful to a person about real-life social interactions, and applying those insights to character design. Game designers who create great characters often make use of these psychological principles without realizing it. Better Game Characters by Design gives game design professionals and other interactive media designers a framework for understanding how social roles and perceptions affect players' reactions to characters, helping produce stronger designs and better results.

Better Game Characters by Design (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3d Technology) Review

The author does a good job of applying well-known and not so well-known psychological principles to game character development. I was surprised to find that the book is mostly substance and doesn't have a lot of fluff. There are interviews from game industry veterans at the end of each chapter which helps to provide more viewpoints on the information. I found the interview with the two japanese designers to be the most interesting.

I think the overall point of the book is to take more into account when designing characters. There are reasons behind every decision you make in anything you do. This book helps to uncover some of the psychology behind characters and their interactions.

With all of this in mind, I would have to say that I don't feel this book's $50 pricetag is completely justified by what I got out of it. The information for me wasn't completely eye-opening; and there's nothing that specifically sticks to mind after having read it that would change my approach to characters a whole lot(other than perhaps their interactions).

The dvd included with the book adds very little to the subject matter; it is nothing but a bunch of low-quality cutscenes from video games. I expected the dvd to have interviews, supplemental reading material, or at least the author commenting on the cutscenes chosen. Unfortunately none of that is included.

The quality of the book physically is very high; it is printed on extremely high quality paper(thermal paper I'm guessing) which seems like it would be very resistant to stains or water damage.

Overall this book is a worthy read. If the price was closer to the $25 mark or the dvd included more worthwhile material I would definitely rate it a lot higher.

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