Building Better Worlds: Ludotronics Book Release
20.03.2019
Ludotronics: A Comprehensive Game Design Methodology From First Ideas to Spectacular Pitches and Proposals. 576 pages, 100+ illustrations. March 2019.
Ludotronics is a conceptually complete paradigm and, building on that core, a comprehensive design methodology for intermediate and advanced game designers. It guides you through concept development, that path from coming up with a raw idea for a game to greenlighting a refined version of that idea for pre-production and later development. It is a methodology that will help you whip ideas into shape until they are strong and sturdy enough to qualify for a killer proposal and become the beating heart of your game design document.
There are two versions:
- The complete & completely free web version at ludotronics.net
- The high-quality e-book version (PDF) at DriveThruRPG
At both links, you can find previews for the e-book version.
Will there be a print version?
It depends. Should there be a higher demand for game design books printed on paper than I think there is, then I will try and find a respectable publisher who can live with the free web version, maybe by way of negotiating some print-exclusive extra content or follow-up publication.
Why not make use of a print-on-demand service?
Frankly, I’ve yet to see a self-published print-on-demand book that isn’t terribly bland and/or lacking in production value. It starts with book sizes: those formats that are available for self-publishers have a habit of being aesthetically atrocious. All things considered, the overall quality wouldn’t justify the calculated price for a 576-page book with 100+ full-color illustrations.
At ludotronics.net, you will find a brief comment on top of each page why I decided on publishing with DriveThuRPG and not with Amazon—particularly because of the latter’s Kindle format (not well-suited for this kind of book) and royalty options (at a 15 EUR price point, Amazon pockets about 10 EUR). But I also I settled with DriveThruRPG because I love this site! And you should too! All the pen & paper publishers are there, it’s overflowing with great role-playing stuff you can buy, and the royalty options are about what can be expected at this point in time.
Yet, there’s another reason I decided on making DriveThruRPG my home for the foreseeable future. I’m in the process of developing a brand-new sf-horror IP that I hope will, in a few years’ time, be ready to hatch a pen & paper role-playing game, also to be published on DriveThruRPG. And, if that gains traction, I hope it will eventually hatch—how could it be otherwise!—a video game as well.
Certainly, there’s a terrible lot of work to do before all that happens. But I’ll keep you posted!