Scott Rogers 
Swipe This! 
The Guide to Great Touchscreen Game Design

Learn to design games for tablets from a renowned game
designer!

Eager to start designing games for tablets but not sure where to
start? Look no further! Gaming guru Scott Rogers has his finger on
the pulse of tablet game design and is willing to impart his wisdom
and secrets for designing exciting and successful games. As the
creator of such venerable games as God of War, the
Sponge Bob Squarepants series, and Pac-Man World, to
name a few, Rogers writes from personal experience and in this
unique book, he hands you the tools to create your own tablet games
for the i Pad, Android tablets, Nintendo DS, and other touchscreen
systems.

* Covers the entire tablet game creation process, placing a
special focus on the intricacies and pitfalls of touch-screen game
design

* Explores the details and features of tablet game systems and
shows you how to develop marketable ideas as well as market your
own games

* Offers an honest take on what perils and pitfalls await you
during a game’s pre-production, production, and post-production
stages

* Features interviews with established tablet game developers
that serve to inspire you as you start to make your own tablet game
design

Swipe This! presents you with an in-depth analysis of
popular tablet games and delivers a road map for getting started
with tablet game design.

Table of Content

Swipe This Book! 1

Some Possible Reasons You Picked Up Swipe This! 2

CHAPTER 1 Hardware Wars 13

DEVELOPER INTERVIEW 1 Paul O’Connor 29

CHAPTER 2 Clown-On-A-Unicycle 33

GAME DESIGN SPOTLIGHT 1 Fruit Ninja HD 53

CHAPTER 3 Finger Fu! 57

DEVELOPER INTERVIEW 2 Andy Ashcraft 81

CHAPTER 4 Genre Busters 85

GAME DESIGN SPOTLIGHT 2 Helsing’s Fire 107

CHAPTER 5 Puzzlings 111

DEVELOPER INTERVIEW 3 Erin Reynolds 137

CHAPTER 6 Arcade Crazy 141

GAME DESIGN SPOTLIGHT 3 Where’s My Water? 171

CHAPTER 7 Action Guy 175

DEVELOPER INTERVIEW 4 Blade Olsen 205

CHAPTER 8 Doodle Cat 209

GAME DESIGN SPOTLIGHT 4 Jetpack Joyride 223

CHAPTER 9 Casual Fryday 227

DEVELOPER INTERVIEW 5 Sam Rosenthal 257

CHAPTER 10 The New Genres 261

GAME DESIGN SPOTLIGHT 5 No, Human 281

DEVELOPER INTERVIEW 6 Andy Reeves 285

CHAPTER 11 Make Your Own Star Wars 289

GAME DESIGN SPOTLIGHT 6 Angry Birds 323

APPPENDIX 1 The Class of 2008 329

APPPENDIX 2 Touchscreen Template 337

APPPENDIX 3 Gameplay Storyboarding Template 339

APPPENDIX 4 The Game Designer’s Checklist 341

Afterword 343

Index 345

About the author

After deciding that game designers have more fun, Scott Rogers embarked on an eighteen- (and counting) year career creating video games, including Sony’s God of War(TM), Capcom’s Maximo: Ghosts to Glory and its sequel Maximo vs. Army of Zin, Namco’s Pac-Man World and THQ’s Darksiders and Drawn to Life series. He is currently an Imagineer for Walt Disney Imagineering.