The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design

ISBN-13: 9781498775502 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 272 str.

USA) Hodent North Carolina Cary Celia (Epic Games

Opis

Making a successful video game is hard. Even games that are successful at launch may fail to engage and retain players in the long term due to issues with the user experience (UX) that it is delivering. The game user experience accounts for the whole experience players have with a video game, from first hearing about it to navigating menus and progressing in the game. UX as a discipline offers guidelines to assist developers in creating the experience they want to deliver, shipping higher quality games (whether it is an indie game, AAA game, or -serious game-), and meeting their business goals while staying true to their design and artistic intent. In a nutshell, UX is about understanding the gamer's brain: understanding human capabilities and limitations to anticipate how a game will be perceived, the emotions it will elicit, how players will interact with it, and how engaging the experience will be. This book is designed to equip readers of all levels, from student to professional, with neuroscience knowledge and user experience guidelines and methodologies. This knowledge will help readers identify the ingredients for successful and engaging video games, empowering them to develop their own unique game recipe more efficiently, while providing a better experience for their audience.

Recenzje

"The beauty of this book is that it is two things at the same time:

1. An amazingly complete introduction to psychology, using examples from video games to make the concepts clear and memorable.

2. An amazingly complete introduction to video game design, using psychology to help design more compelling games.

So whether you are a game designer, a player, or someone wishing to understand psychology, this is the book for you."

-Don Norman, Director, the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego Author of The Design of Everyday Things

"By blending up-to-date brain science with game-relevant UX design principles, this book doesn't just give great tips about how to make better games, it gives designers the mental tools to get better at thinking about games. Read this, and suddenly you'll know what you're talking about."

-Jesse Schell, Game Designer, author of The Art of Game Design

"This book is an invaluable asset for game developers, whether you work in game design, user experience, or programming. With a lucid overview of the current best knowledge from cognitive psychology, Hodent provides guidelines and approaches to improve the game experience for players that are based on actual science."

-Raph Koster, Game Designer, author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design

Spis treści

Introduction. Part I: Video Games and the Brain. How the Brain Learns in a Nutshell. Perception. Attention. Memory. Emotion. Motivation. Applying Learning Techniques in Games. Part II: A UX Framework for Video Games. History of UX. Usability. GameFlow. User Research. Analytics. UX Reporting. Conclusion. References. Glossary. Appendix: UX Checklist. Index.

O autorze

Celia Hodent is recognized as a leader in the application of user experience (UX) and cognitive science in the game industry. Celia holds a PhD in psychology and has over ten years of experience in the development of UX strategy and processes in video game studios. Through her work at Ubisoft (e.g. Rainbow Six franchise), LucasArts (e.g. Star Wars: 1313), and as Director of UX at Epic Games (e.g. Fortnite), she has contributed to many projects across multiple platforms, from PC to consoles, mobile, and VR. Celia is also the founder of the Game UX Summit, advisor for the GDC UX Summit, and author of The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX can Impact Video Game Design. She currently works as a freelance Game UX Consultant, helping studios increase their games’ likeliness of being engaging and successful.