Resources - Wizards and Warriors: Massively Multiplayer Online Game Creation - page 309

Challenges for Game Designers 1e
Brenda Brathwaite
Ian Schreiber

ISBN-13: 9781584505808
ISBN-10: 158450580X

You may want to practice being a game designer without needing to actually
create a game on the computer, or challenge your skills and hone your talents
before typing away at a computer. This topic provides you with a set of design
challenge exercises to get those brain cells working overtime.

Useful Tools
The tools you use in making, designing, and publishing your MMO (or any
other games) will depend on your budget and products. Here is a list of handy
products that you should consider:

n Excel: Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application that allows you to
place items into row and columns. Excel is very useful in game design/
creation and is used extensively for storing data. From the point of view
of making an MMO, it s a very useful tool for listing quests, items, and

character attributes. There are alternatives to Excel if you cannot afford
to use this product, such as Open Office.
n Post It Notes: These can be the paper type or the ones that you down-
load an application for and place on your desktop. When you are creat-
ing games, you will have ideas at any time, and it

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s a good idea to write
them down. Many a good idea can be forgotten in the rush to do
something else. Many writers even have a notepad next to their bed so
they can write something down after having a dream or nightmare.
Sometimes you might not even be at home or in front of a computer, so
this presents a small challenge to make sure you don

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t forget. But even
mobile phones have a way of storing data such as emails or task notes.
n Word/Wordpad : You can use Word (or the free Wordpad) to create
your stories or game information. You might also want to create your
game documentation and help in this software. If you are going to

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