Search icon CANCEL
Subscription
0
Cart icon
Your Cart (0 item)
Close icon
You have no products in your basket yet
Save more on your purchases! discount-offer-chevron-icon
Savings automatically calculated. No voucher code required.
Arrow left icon
Explore Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
Gamesalad Essentials
Gamesalad Essentials

Gamesalad Essentials: Create awesome cross-platform games in no time, and with no coding

eBook
$9.99 $16.99
Paperback
$26.99
Subscription
Free Trial
Renews at $19.99p/m

What do you get with eBook?

Product feature icon Instant access to your Digital eBook purchase
Product feature icon Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Product feature icon Access this title in our online reader with advanced features
Product feature icon DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
OR
Modal Close icon
Payment Processing...
tick Completed

Billing Address

Table of content icon View table of contents Preview book icon Preview Book

Gamesalad Essentials

Chapter 2. From Design to Production

All great selling video games start off with a design phase. Think of fantastic games like Portal 2, Destiny, or The Last of Us. All these games had a huge production and design phase. It would be a little unrealistic to think such amazing games started with the director saying, "Hey guys! Start creating some levels, we'll figure things out later." Granted, sometimes it is necessary to create games like this to get your creative juices flowing, but for the most part, it's a great idea to design your whole game first, and then start developing. This will certainly streamline the development because you wouldn't have to think as you go. That's what we are going to discuss in this chapter; how we can go from the design phase into production.

Let's see what we are going to cover:

  • Designing your game
  • Creating sprites for your game
  • Starting the production of your game

Now, the fun really begins. From this chapter on...

The design process

Already have an awesome idea for a game? Great! Now put it down in writing and try to be as detailed as possible. You may have heard of a design document, which is exactly what it sounds like; a document full of details of your game, whether it's story content, weapons, items, characters, and so on. Here's a good baseline template for your design document:

  • Name of the game
  • Storyline
  • Overall environment of the game: Do you want it to be comedic, or dark?
  • Objectives: Things your player will have to do to resolve the issues in the game
  • Game Progression: How is the game going to play out? Slow and steady, or fast?
  • Features of the game: We are talking about SDK (Software Development Kit) level here. What do you want to include? Game Center, Xbox Live, Leaderboards, or online multiplayer?
  • Characters: This is a fun one to work on. Who is the main character? What's his (or her) background story? What does he (or she) look like? What are they wearing? Who is the girl...

From paper to screen

Make sure your whole game is designed, and carefully planned with every detail. What now? Well, let's take it from your paper planning and create sprites for the game.

What are sprites? Sprites are the images that make up your game, from your player to items and environment elements; each image you create is a sprite.

Drawing your sprites are really not difficult, in fact you can even scan your drawings into Photoshop and draw on top of your paper drawing. Incidentally, we are going to do something similar. Here's a drawing of a simple character:

Nothing fancy, but certainly something simple we can work with. Let's open up our scanned image in Photoshop.

Typical sizes for sprites are 32 x 32; however, with bigger screens such as the Galaxy Note and iPhone 6 Plus, we will want to use some larger sprite sizes. For this example, we are going to create a 50 x 50 sprite. We will worry about sizing it later.

From paper to screen

Once Photoshop is opened, you...

Production

From the images you created, or even ones you may have downloaded, we are going to start using them in GameSalad. We are going to see how to import images, make actors out of them, and start laying out some levels.

Creating our Project

Let's start with our project.

Open up GameSalad, and under Create a New Project, click on the Blank Project option. You can fill in all the details of your game if you like. I'm going to call the project title "Adventures of Kevin, Episode 1: Curse of the Stinky Fish". Yep! Click on the Scenes tab and open up the Initial Scene:

Creating our Project

Under the Library section, click on the Media button. This section will show you all your imported images. Click on the + button at the bottom of the Library window, and a window will open to select your media. Simply select all the images you want to import and click on Open, and that's it! If you want, you can also drag-and-drop your image files directly into the Library window for fast importing....

Summary

In this chapter, we discussed a lot about the game design process. Some good procedures to follow and how it can benefit you during the development process. These are just recommendations for you, as you can tweak your own design process to whatever works for you. We also discussed how you can use certain design documents, and how you can take your drawings and put them into GameSalad. From there, we learned how to start designing levels within GameSalad.

In the next chapter, we are going to delve a little deeper into GameSalad. We're going to discuss how to create a main menu, game introductions and logo animations, option menus, and level selection menus.

Go get yourself a nice coffee, beer, glass of wine, or milk, and let's dive into the next chapter.

Left arrow icon Right arrow icon

Description

If you want to create your own game, but don't know where to start, this is the book for you. Whether you've used GameSalad before, or have prior game development experience or not you are sure to learn! Imaging software experience, such as Photoshop, is good to have, but art and assets are provided in the book's resources.

Product Details

Country selected
Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Jan 30, 2015
Length: 154 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781784398460
Vendor :
GameSalad
Concepts :
Tools :

What do you get with eBook?

Product feature icon Instant access to your Digital eBook purchase
Product feature icon Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Product feature icon Access this title in our online reader with advanced features
Product feature icon DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
OR
Modal Close icon
Payment Processing...
tick Completed

Billing Address

Product Details

Publication date : Jan 30, 2015
Length: 154 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781784398460
Vendor :
GameSalad
Concepts :
Tools :

Packt Subscriptions

See our plans and pricing
Modal Close icon
$19.99 billed monthly
Feature tick icon Unlimited access to Packt's library of 7,000+ practical books and videos
Feature tick icon Constantly refreshed with 50+ new titles a month
Feature tick icon Exclusive Early access to books as they're written
Feature tick icon Solve problems while you work with advanced search and reference features
Feature tick icon Offline reading on the mobile app
Feature tick icon Simple pricing, no contract
$199.99 billed annually
Feature tick icon Unlimited access to Packt's library of 7,000+ practical books and videos
Feature tick icon Constantly refreshed with 50+ new titles a month
Feature tick icon Exclusive Early access to books as they're written
Feature tick icon Solve problems while you work with advanced search and reference features
Feature tick icon Offline reading on the mobile app
Feature tick icon Choose a DRM-free eBook or Video every month to keep
Feature tick icon PLUS own as many other DRM-free eBooks or Videos as you like for just $5 each
Feature tick icon Exclusive print discounts
$279.99 billed in 18 months
Feature tick icon Unlimited access to Packt's library of 7,000+ practical books and videos
Feature tick icon Constantly refreshed with 50+ new titles a month
Feature tick icon Exclusive Early access to books as they're written
Feature tick icon Solve problems while you work with advanced search and reference features
Feature tick icon Offline reading on the mobile app
Feature tick icon Choose a DRM-free eBook or Video every month to keep
Feature tick icon PLUS own as many other DRM-free eBooks or Videos as you like for just $5 each
Feature tick icon Exclusive print discounts

Frequently bought together


Stars icon
Total $ 92.97
Unity 5 for Android Essentials
$32.99
Stencyl Essentials
$32.99
Gamesalad Essentials
$26.99
Total $ 92.97 Stars icon
Banner background image

Table of Contents

9 Chapters
1. Setting Up GameSalad Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. From Design to Production Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Diving In – Introductions and Menus Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Diving In – Player Creation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Diving In – Gameplay Mechanics Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Diving In – Enemies Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Diving In – Objectives Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
A. The Challenges of Game Development Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
(1 Ratings)
5 star 0%
4 star 0%
3 star 100%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%
Israel Sepulveda Apr 09, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
This GameSalad Essential book is poorly written. Throughout the book, the writer assumes you know what he's talking about. When the author explains how to do a task, he fails to mention things like "click on the actor" before doing the task. When learning something new, I prefer things to be written out in detail.Even though it's poorly written, it does get you on the right track to make a game. There are better youtube tutorials though.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Get free access to Packt library with over 7500+ books and video courses for 7 days!
Start Free Trial

FAQs

How do I buy and download an eBook? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Where there is an eBook version of a title available, you can buy it from the book details for that title. Add either the standalone eBook or the eBook and print book bundle to your shopping cart. Your eBook will show in your cart as a product on its own. After completing checkout and payment in the normal way, you will receive your receipt on the screen containing a link to a personalised PDF download file. This link will remain active for 30 days. You can download backup copies of the file by logging in to your account at any time.

If you already have Adobe reader installed, then clicking on the link will download and open the PDF file directly. If you don't, then save the PDF file on your machine and download the Reader to view it.

Please Note: Packt eBooks are non-returnable and non-refundable.

Packt eBook and Licensing When you buy an eBook from Packt Publishing, completing your purchase means you accept the terms of our licence agreement. Please read the full text of the agreement. In it we have tried to balance the need for the ebook to be usable for you the reader with our needs to protect the rights of us as Publishers and of our authors. In summary, the agreement says:

  • You may make copies of your eBook for your own use onto any machine
  • You may not pass copies of the eBook on to anyone else
How can I make a purchase on your website? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

If you want to purchase a video course, eBook or Bundle (Print+eBook) please follow below steps:

  1. Register on our website using your email address and the password.
  2. Search for the title by name or ISBN using the search option.
  3. Select the title you want to purchase.
  4. Choose the format you wish to purchase the title in; if you order the Print Book, you get a free eBook copy of the same title. 
  5. Proceed with the checkout process (payment to be made using Credit Card, Debit Cart, or PayPal)
Where can I access support around an eBook? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
  • If you experience a problem with using or installing Adobe Reader, the contact Adobe directly.
  • To view the errata for the book, see www.packtpub.com/support and view the pages for the title you have.
  • To view your account details or to download a new copy of the book go to www.packtpub.com/account
  • To contact us directly if a problem is not resolved, use www.packtpub.com/contact-us
What eBook formats do Packt support? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Our eBooks are currently available in a variety of formats such as PDF and ePubs. In the future, this may well change with trends and development in technology, but please note that our PDFs are not Adobe eBook Reader format, which has greater restrictions on security.

You will need to use Adobe Reader v9 or later in order to read Packt's PDF eBooks.

What are the benefits of eBooks? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
  • You can get the information you need immediately
  • You can easily take them with you on a laptop
  • You can download them an unlimited number of times
  • You can print them out
  • They are copy-paste enabled
  • They are searchable
  • There is no password protection
  • They are lower price than print
  • They save resources and space
What is an eBook? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Packt eBooks are a complete electronic version of the print edition, available in PDF and ePub formats. Every piece of content down to the page numbering is the same. Because we save the costs of printing and shipping the book to you, we are able to offer eBooks at a lower cost than print editions.

When you have purchased an eBook, simply login to your account and click on the link in Your Download Area. We recommend you saving the file to your hard drive before opening it.

For optimal viewing of our eBooks, we recommend you download and install the free Adobe Reader version 9.