SuperApe
02-18-2009, 09:29 AM
via Gamasutra:
Over my holiday vacation I finished reading The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell. Schell teaches game design over at Carnegie Mellon and works in the industry leading Pittsburgh-based Schell Games (Toy Story Midway Mania!), and he has produced a comprehensive and clearly written book mapping out the conceptual tools and techniques of game design.
The book is targeted at the new game designer, but seeks to provide enough depth to be broadly useful to working designers.
It perhaps goes without saying that this is a book on game design, not game development. It will not teach you about programming, art or much of any technical production skills. It is about game mechanics, the player experience, pitching, iterating, and brainstorming; all the messy core activities of game design.
The book has two organizing principles. The first is an organically laid out map of all the important elements of a game design. This allows you to deconstruct a game and gives names to what you are talking about.
The second is a series of "lenses", or questions, that you can ask about your game design as you iterate upon it. It is a good book that teaches the craft of game design in an accessible manner.
...
Link to Full Review (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3934/book_review_the_art_of_game_design.php)
http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/feature/3934/image002.jpg
This thorough breakdown of the book's merits plus the glowing reviews on Amazon have convinced me to get both the book and the companion Deck of Lenses. (I still say, "print is dead", but I'll make exceptions for things that resemble text books.) :D
Over my holiday vacation I finished reading The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell. Schell teaches game design over at Carnegie Mellon and works in the industry leading Pittsburgh-based Schell Games (Toy Story Midway Mania!), and he has produced a comprehensive and clearly written book mapping out the conceptual tools and techniques of game design.
The book is targeted at the new game designer, but seeks to provide enough depth to be broadly useful to working designers.
It perhaps goes without saying that this is a book on game design, not game development. It will not teach you about programming, art or much of any technical production skills. It is about game mechanics, the player experience, pitching, iterating, and brainstorming; all the messy core activities of game design.
The book has two organizing principles. The first is an organically laid out map of all the important elements of a game design. This allows you to deconstruct a game and gives names to what you are talking about.
The second is a series of "lenses", or questions, that you can ask about your game design as you iterate upon it. It is a good book that teaches the craft of game design in an accessible manner.
...
Link to Full Review (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3934/book_review_the_art_of_game_design.php)
http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/feature/3934/image002.jpg
This thorough breakdown of the book's merits plus the glowing reviews on Amazon have convinced me to get both the book and the companion Deck of Lenses. (I still say, "print is dead", but I'll make exceptions for things that resemble text books.) :D