Welcome! You’re in the Getting Started area for the book Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences by Tynan Sylvester.
It’s a place where you can ask general questions and get help if you’re stuck.
Anyone who’s logged in can view the topics in this area, so if you’ve already started reading, please be sure not to post any spoilers here!
When you’re ready to discuss the first Chapter, do the following:
- Click on Book Shelf in the side nav, and
- Mark Chapter 1 as complete
This will open up your first checkpoint.
What are checkpoints?
Checkpoints are discussion areas that open up every 1-3 chapters.
When you’ve finished reading the designated chapters for a checkpoint, you’ll go to the Book Shelf and click Mark complete (as shown in the example above). This’ll unlock the discussion for that checkpoint.
Checkpoints let you go at your own pace without having to worry about spoilers or discussion for chapters you haven’t read yet.
To help you plan out your reading, here’s a breakdown of how checkpoints are divided for this book:
| Checkpoint | Chapters | Pages |
|---|---|---|
| Part I | ||
| 1 | 1 | 42 |
| Part II | ||
| 2 | 2 to 4 | 70 |
| 3 | 5 to 6 | 56 |
| 4 | 7 to 8 | 44 |
| 5 | 9 to 10 | 58 |
| Part III | ||
| 6 | 11 to 12 | 46 |
| 7 | 13 to 15 | 40 |
| 8 | 16 to 17 + Endgame | 14 |
Note: I own the 2013 paperback edition of the book, which may show different page numbers from your copy.
Checkpoints and navigation
By default, when you complete a checkpoint, a link to it will be displayed in your nav menu:
You can toggle this on or off from the Book Shelf. Note that in order to keep the sidebar from becoming a sprawling mess, only your latest checkpoint will be displayed.
If you’d like to display multiple checkpoints, you can customize your categories menu, instead. (On desktop, hover over the Categories heading in the side nav and click the pencil icon to edit which categories are displayed for you.)
You can always return to a previous checkpoint’s discussion area by navigating to the Book Shelf or by interacting with the breadcrumbs in your current category:
Feel free to ask questions below if anything seems unclear!