As games grow more complex and gamers' expectations soar, the discipline of game systems design becomes ever more important. Game systems designers plan a game's rules and balance, its characters' attributes, most of its data, and how its AI, weapons, and objects work and interact. Introduction to Game Systems Design is the first complete beginner's guide to this crucial discipline. Writing for all aspiring game professionals, even those with absolutely no experience, leading game designer and instructor Dax Gazaway presents a step-by-step, hands-on approach to designing game systems with industry-standard tools. Drawing on his experience building AAA-level game systems (including games in the Star Wars and Marvel franchises), Gazaway covers all this, and more:
- Exploring the essentials of game design and its emerging subdisciplines
- Asking the essential questions at the heart of all design
- Getting started with modern game system design tools, including the spreadsheets most professionals now use
- Creating systems and data from a blank page
- Populating and quantifying a world of data into a game
- Tuning and balancing game systems
- Testing game systems and data
- Leveraging communication, psychology, and rewards within your games
- Balancing game probability within systems
Whether you're a college freshman entering a game design program, an indie developer using Unreal or Unity, a Dungeon Master, or anyone who wants to really understand modern games, this guide will help you get where you want to go.
Dax Gazaway was raised in a gamer family. His parents met in a Dungeons & Dragons group, and he was surrounded with games being played and made. From a very early age, Dax was fascinated by the numbers in games. He would pour over monster manuals and board game books, dissecting the rules to figure out how the systems worked.
Dax started in the video game industry in the late 1990s. During his tenure in the industry, Dax pioneered game system design at multiple independent and AAA studios, helping to refine and define the subdiscipline. In recent years, he has become a course director at Full Sail University, specializing in teaching new students the concepts and tools of the system designer. Dax has created new curriculum and multiple classes for system design students, and he teaches introduction to system design courses.
The following is a selection of Dax's game design credits:
Star Wars: Obi-Wan, System and level designer
Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, System and level designer and QA liaison
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter: System and level designer
Gladius: System designer
Syphon Filter franchise: Lead designer and system designer
Spider Man 3: Lead system designer
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Lead system designer
Guitar Hero franchise: System designer
In addition, Dax has been the studio lead system designer for Row Sham Bow Games and a system design consultant for multiple projects.
