"In this not-too-long and easy-to-read book, author Celia Hodent presents a clear overview of the challenges, demands, and rewards of becoming a user experience professional. If this field interests you, there’s no better place to start than with the volume you now hold in your hand."

Alan Cooper, Ancestry Thinker, Software Alchemist, Regenerative Rancher, Author of The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity

The main objective of What UX is Really About: Introducing a Mindset for Great Experiences is to provide a quick introduction to user experience (UX 101) for students, professionals, or simply curious readers who want to understand this trendy yet commonly misunderstood practice better. Readers will learn that UX is much more than a set of techniques, guidelines, and tools. It is a mindset; a philosophy that takes the perspective of the humans that will use a product. It is about solving their problems, offering them a pleasurable experience, and building a win-win, long-lasting relationship between them and the company developing the product. Above all, it is about improving people’s lives with technology. What UX is Really About is informative, concise, and provides readers with a high-level overview of the science, design, and methodologies of UX.

KEY FEATURES:

• The most approachable and concise introduction book about UX.

• Easy to read and aims to popularize the UX mindset while debunking its main misconceptions.

• Small format size makes it easy to carry around.

• Includes content relatable and meaningful to the readers by taking many examples from everyday life with a conversational and light writing style.

• Tackles the psychology, design, research, process, strategy, and ethics behind offering the best experience with products, systems, or services.

• Includes a glossary.

Celia Hodent holds a PhD in psychology, and is a leading expert in the application of cognitive science and psychology to product development, with over 13 years of experience in the development of UX strategy in video game studios, such as Ubisoft, LucasArts, and Epic Games (Fortnite). She currently leads an independent UX consultancy, working with a wide range of international media and enterprise companies to help ensure their products are engaging, successful, and respectful of users. Celia conducts workshops and provides guidance on the topics of game-based UX, playful learning ("gamification"), ethics, implicit biases, and inclusion in tech. Celia is the author of The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design and The Psychology of Video Games.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 What Is UX?

Chapter 2 What UX Is Not

Chapter 3 The Science behind UX

Chapter 4 The Process and Methodologies of UX

Chapter 5 Ethics and the UX Mindset

Chapter 6 Conclusion

From security training simulations to war games to role-playing games, to sports games to gambling, playing video games has become a social phenomena, and the increasing number of players that cross gender, culture, and age is on a dramatic upward trajectory. "Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences" integrates communication, psychology, and technology to examine the psychological and mediated aspects of playing video games. It is the first volume to delve deeply into these aspects of computer game play. It fits squarely into the media psychology arm of entertainment studies, the next big wave in media studies. The book targets one of the most popular and pervasive media in modern times, and it will serve to define the area of study and provide a theoretical spine for future research.
This unique and timely volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students in media studies and mass communication, psychology, and marketing.

This book presents the most up-to-date coverage of procedural content generation (PCG) for games, specifically the procedural generation of levels, landscapes, items, rules, quests, or other types of content. Each chapter explains an algorithm type or domain, including fractal methods, grammar-based methods, search-based and evolutionary methods, constraint-based methods, and narrative, terrain, and dungeon generation. The authors are active academic researchers and game developers, and the book is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students of courses on games and creativity; game developers who want to learn new methods for content generation; and researchers in related areas of artificial intelligence and computational intelligence.

Game Studies is a rapidly growing area of contemporary scholarship, yet volumes in the area have tended to focus on more general issues. With Playing with the Past, game studies is taken to the next level by offering a specific and detailed analysis of one area of digital game play -- the representation of history. The collection focuses on the ways in which gamers engage with, play with, recreate, subvert, reverse and direct the historical past, and what effect this has on the ways in which we go about constructing the present or imagining a future. What can World War Two strategy games teach us about the reality of this complex and multifaceted period? Do the possibilities of playing with the past change the way we understand history? If we embody a colonialist's perspective to conquer 'primitive' tribes in Colonization, does this privilege a distinct way of viewing history as benevolent intervention over imperialist expansion? The fusion of these two fields allows the editors to pose new questions about the ways in which gamers interact with their game worlds. Drawing these threads together, the collection concludes by asking whether digital games - which represent history or historical change - alter the way we, today, understand history itself.

Design and develop sophisticated 2D games that are as much fun to make as they are to play. From particle effects and pathfinding to social integration and monetization, this complete tour of Apple's powerful suite of game technologies covers it all. Familiar with Swift but new to game development? No problem. Start with the basics and then layer in the complexity as you work your way through three exciting - and fully playable - games. In the end, you'll know everything you need to go off and create your own video game masterpiece for any Apple platform. Discover the power of Apple Game Frameworks, Xcode, and Swift by building three exciting games: Gloop Drop - a new twist on a classic arcade game, Val's Revenge - a roguelike dungeon crawler, and Hog - a social player vs. player mobile dice game. With Apple Game Frameworks, you can create high-performance, power-efficient games that work across all Apple platforms, including iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS. In this book, you'll discover how to... Design and develop rich 2D gaming experiences using Apple's built-in game frameworks. Harness the power of SpriteKit using Xcode and Swift to create engaging player experiences. Use the visual Scene Editor to build complete scenes. Unleash the power of the Particle Editor to create amazing effects. Use GameplayKit to add advanced features to your games like pathfinding, artificial intelligence, and complex rule systems. Build larger, more complex worlds with tile maps and Xcode's visual Tile Map editor. Bring people together using GameKit and Game Center, Apple's social gaming network. Increase revenue with third-party banner ads and rewarded ads using Google AdMob (TM). Monetize your games with StoreKit and in-app purchases. So, grab your gear and get your game on - it's time to level up your skills. What You Need: macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or newer Xcode 11.3 or newer Basic knowledge of Swift 5.1.4 or newer

This new edition provides step-by-step instruction on modern 3D graphics shader programming in OpenGL with Java, along with its theoretical foundations. It is appropriate both for computer science graphics courses, and for professionals interested in mastering 3D graphics skills. It has been designed in a 4-color, "teach-yourself" format with numerous examples that the reader can run just as presented. Every shader stage is explored, from the basics of modeling, textures, lighting, shadows, etc., through advanced techniques such as tessellation, normal mapping, noise maps, as well as new chapters on simulating water, stereoscopy, and ray tracing. FEATURES Covers modern OpenGL 4.0+ shader programming in Java, with instructions for both PC/Windows and Macintosh Illustrates every technique with running code examples. Everything needed to install the libraries, and complete source code for each example Includes step-by-step instruction for using each GLSL programmable pipeline stage (vertex, tessellation, geometry, and fragment) Explores practical examples for modeling, lighting and shadows (including soft shadows), terrain, water, and 3D materials such as wood and marble Adds new chapters on simulating water, stereoscopy, and ray tracing with compute shaders Explains how to optimize code with tools such as Nvidia's Nsight debugger Includes companion files with code, object models, figures, and more

Games software has its roots in a "cottage" industry, ignoring formal methodologies, instead leaving the programmers to find homespun solutions to the technical problems faced. The picture has now changed: the scale of the problems faced by programmers means that more methodical techniques must be applied to game development to prevent projects spiralling out of control, both in terms of technical complexity and cost. The book addresses how program teams can develop ever more complex entertainment software within the constraints of deadlines, budgets and changing technologies. It establishes a set of best practices tempered with real-world pragmatism, understanding that there is no "one size fits all" solution. No member of the game development team should be working in isolation and the book will be useful to producers, designers and artists as well as the programmers themselves. In addition, the book addresses the needs of the growing number of Game Development courses offered in academia, giving students a much-needed insight into the real world of object-oriented game design.

Weigh the past and seize your destiny-wherever the darkened path may lead-with The Sanctuary Tarot Deck and Guidebook, inspired by the mythos of Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo and its magic-infused world of Sanctuary. In this deluxe boxed set featuring 78 oversize cards and a 96-page guidebook, rekindle the traditions of those who threw bones, read tea leaves, and invoked the supernatural to light their path. With a team of artists led by Konstantin Vavilov and a comprehensive guidebook by Barbara Moore, this tarot set channels the beauty and terror of Sanctuary into an all-encompassing, visually stunning experience that holds the key to understanding-and embracing-your own inner demons.

In this book, veteran game developers, academics, journalists, and others provide their processes and experiences with level design. Each provides a unique perspective representing multiple steps of the process for interacting with and creating game levels - experiencing levels, designing levels, constructing levels, and testing levels. These diverse perspectives offer readers a window into the thought processes that result in memorable open game worlds, chilling horror environments, computer-generated levels, evocative soundscapes, and many other types of gamespaces. This collection invites readers into the minds of professional designers as they work and provides evergreen topics on level design and game criticism to inspire both new and veteran designers. Key Features: Learn about the processes of experienced developers and level designers in their own words Discover best-practices for creating levels for persuasive play and designing collaboratively Offers analysis methods for better understanding game worlds and how they function in response to gameplay Find your own preferred method of level design by learning the processes of multiple industry veterans

Game design is a sibling discipline to software and Web design, but they're siblings that grew up in different houses. They have much more in common than their perceived distinction typically suggests, and user experience practitioners can realize enormous benefit by exploiting the solutions that games have found to the real problems of design. This book will show you how.

This book will provide a comprehensive guide to creating and managing a game jam. The book will also provide an overview of how and where game jams have been held, the type of game jams, the tools and technologies used in organising and participating in game jams.

Game Audio Fundamentals takes the reader on a journey through game audio design: from analog and digital audio basics, to the art and execution of sound effects, soundtracks, and voice production, as well as learning how to make sense of a truly effective soundscape. Presuming no pre-existing knowledge, this accessible guide is accompanied by online resources - including practical examples and incremental DAW exercises - and presents the theory and practice of game audio in detail, and in a format anyone can understand. This is essential reading for any aspiring game audio designer, as well as students and professionals from a range of backgrounds, including music, audio engineering, and game design.

The best of the best in gaming from a single decade: 19881998! As most gamers know, this ten-year period is incredibly crucial. It was during this time that the NES reached its zenith with such titles as Contra and Super Mario Bros. 3, the Sega Genesis blew everyone away with Sonic the Hedgehog, the Super Nintendo released to critical acclaim, the Sony PlayStation took video games to the next level, and the Nintendo 64 broke new ground with 3-D Mario and Zelda. Amazing! This book covers the era in great detail, with each game getting an in-depth essay that includes history, development info, nostalgic stories, and much more. The author wrote more than a dozen of the essays, with other writers and industry notables contributing essays on their favorite games as well. Finally, the follow-up to The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 19771987 is here!

Celebrate the holidays in Tamriel with this 25-day advent calendar! Inspired by the hit video game series, The Elder Scrolls: The Official Advent Calendar features 25 days of exclusive surprises including keychains, high-quality stickers, recipe cards, mini booklets, and more unique keepsakes. The perfect gift for gamers of all ages, The Elder Scrolls: The Official Advent Calendar brings the epic world of Tamriel to your holiday celebrations!

Let the iconic, retro-futuristic wasteland guide your tarot practice with this beautifully illustrated deck inspired by the massively popular Fallout franchise. Featuring deluxe custom artwork of iconic figures from the beloved Fallout franchise, this deck is a great way to enjoy the characters and lore of this popular video game. Containing both major and minor arcana, the set also comes with a comprehensive guidebook explaining each card's meaning, as well as simple spreads for easy readings. Packed in a sturdy, decorative gift box, this compelling tarot deck is perfect for Fallout fans and tarot enthusiasts alike.

Are you thinking about working in the board game industry? Here's what you need to know. There are so many jobs and roles that need to be filled in the board game industry. You might just have the right skills and experience to excel. But first you need to know what opportunities exist and what the hardest gaps are to fill! In this book, you'll discover * What jobs are really in demand * How you can get your foot in the door with a publisher * Jobs in the industry you've never even thought of * What other opportunities exist for people with skills just like yours With insights from over 40 industry pros, as well as the author's many years of experience, you'll be able to put your own skills and experience to great use in an amazing, growing industry.

Within the field of game design, game balance can best be described as a black art. It is the process by which game designers make a game simultaneously fair for players while providing them just the right amount of difficulty to be both exciting and challenging without making the game entirely predictable. This involves a combination of mathematics, psychology, and occasionally other fields such as economics and game theory. Game Balance offers readers a dynamic look into game design and player theory. Throughout the book, relevant topics on the use of spreadsheet programs will be included in each chapter. This book therefore doubles as a useful reference on Microsoft Excel, Google Spreadsheets, and other spreadsheet programs and their uses for game designers. FEATURES The first and only book to explore game balance as a topic in depth Topics range from intermediate to advanced, while written in an accessible style that demystifies even the most challenging mathematical concepts to the point where a novice student of game design can understand and apply them Contains powerful spreadsheet techniques which have been tested with all major spreadsheet programs and battle-tested with real-world game design tasks Provides short-form exercises at the end of each chapter to allow for practice of the techniques discussed therein along with three long-term projects divided into parts throughout the book that involve their creation Written by award-winning designers with decades of experience in the field Ian Schreiber has been in the industry since 2000, first as a programmer and then as a game designer. He has worked on eight published game titles, training/simulation games for three Fortune 500 companies, and has advised countless student projects. He is the co-founder of Global Game Jam, the largest in-person game jam event in the world. Ian has taught game design and development courses at a variety of colleges and universities since 2006. Brenda Romero is a BAFTA award-winning game director, entrepreneur, artist, and Fulbright award recipient and is presently game director and creator of the Empire of Sin franchise. As a game director, she has worked on 50 games and contributed to many seminal titles, including the Wizardry and Jagged Alliance series and titles in the Ghost Recon, Dungeons & Dragons, and Def Jam franchises.

This book discusses theoretically and empirically the trade-off relationship between the frequency of product adaptation activities and the constraints on development resources, and how companies can respond to these constraints. The objective of this book is to identify effective management practices in continuous product development. With the continuation of development activities, companies are required to constantly adapt their products to changes in the external environment. In continuous product development, the development process extends beyond product release, and interaction with the external environment is not limited to the planning stage but occurs multiple times throughout the process. What impact does the multiple adaptation activities have on the product performance as development activities become more continuous, and how to use limited development resources to provide stable and constant high-quality adaptation activities with optimal frequency have become urgent issues in the development sites. To address these research questions, this book focuses primarily on the development activities of the online game industry. The factors that bring about superior product performance are examined by combining case studies and questionnaire surveys on online game development projects. Furthermore, user community management is also discussed from the perspective of the interaction process between multiple user groups.

All games are potentially transformative experiences because they engage the player in dynamic action. When repurposed in an educational context, even highly popular casual games played online to pass the time can engage players in a way that deepens learning. Games as Transformative Experiences for Critical Thinking, Cultural Awareness, and Deep Learning: Strategies & Resources examines the learning value of a wide variety of games across multiple disciplines. Organized just like a well-made game, the book is divided into four parts highlighting classroom experiences, community and culture, virtual learning, and interdisciplinary instruction. The author crosses between the high school and college classroom and addresses a range of disciplines, both online and classroom practice, the design of curriculum, and the transformation of assessment practices. In addition to a wealth of practical exercises, resources, and lesson ideas, the book explains how to use a wide and diverse range of games from casual to massively multiplayer online games for self-improvement as well as classroom situations.

Crafted to resemble a set of Abstergo case files, this immersive and interactive book provides a glimpse into the technology that allows characters to inhabit the lives of their ancestors - a cornerstone of the Assassin's Creed narrative. In-depth and beautifully illustrated, the Assassin's Creed Manual will grant a never-before-seen look at the inner workings of the fictional corporation at the heart of the blockbuster franchise.

Direct3D 11 offers such a wealth of capabilities that users can sometimes get lost in the details of specific APIs and their implementation. While there is a great deal of low-level information available about how each API function should be used, there is little documentation that shows how best to leverage these capabilities. Written by active members of the Direct3D community, Practical Rendering and Computation with Direct3D 11 provides a deep understanding of both the high and low level concepts related to using Direct3D 11. The first part of the book presents a conceptual introduction to Direct3D 11, including an overview of the Direct3D 11 rendering and computation pipelines and how they map to the underlying hardware. It also provides a detailed look at all of the major components of the library, covering resources, pipeline details, and multithreaded rendering. Building upon this material, the second part of the text includes detailed examples of how to use Direct3D 11 in common rendering scenarios. The authors describe sample algorithms in-depth and discuss how the features of Direct3D 11 can be used to your advantage. All of the source code from the book is accessible on an actively maintained open source rendering framework. The sample applications and the framework itself can be downloaded from http://hieroglyph3.codeplex.com By analyzing when to use various tools and the tradeoffs between different implementations, this book helps you understand the best way to accomplish a given task and thereby fully leverage the potential capabilities of Direct3D 11. Key Features Presents the high level concepts used to design algorithms Describes the nuts and bolts of how to implement the algorithms Explains each of the major components of the Direct3D 11 library Shows how Direct3D 11 can be used in a variety of real-world situations Provides source code and sample programs on a supplementary website

The must-have collectible compendium, continuing the extensive lore compilation of the Destiny universe. Destiny Grimoire Anthology, Volume IV: The Royal Will, unravels the making and methods of two of Destiny's most powerful monarchs-Mara Sov, the Queen of the Awoken and Oryx, the Taken King. Through a curated selection of lore surrounding their legends, these pages explore beyond their storied rise to power and ill-fated confrontation among the rings of Saturn to reveal a deeper understanding of the mysterious Awoken and examine the very essence of Light and Dark.