Reverse Design

Book excerpt: The Reverse Design series looks at all of the design decisions that went into classic video games. This is the fourth installment in the Reverse Design series, looking at Half-Life. Written in a readable format, it is broken down into six sections examining some of the most important topics to the game: 1. How Half-Life is a key step in the evolution from the composite style of videogame design to the set piece of style of design; 2. How Half-Life defined almost all of the core concepts of the cover-based shooter, and redefined the level architecture of the FPS genre; 3. The small tricks and flourishes that Half-Life used to tell a story through its mechanics, AI and environments--back cover.