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The Art Of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses (2008)

by Jesse Schell(Favorite Author)

4.39 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0123694965 (ISBN13: 9780123694966)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Morgan Kaufmann Publishers

review 1: While this book is aimed primarily at video game designers, and other designers of interactive entertainment software, there's a tremendous amount of advice and guidance in it that's applicable to any game designer. The author starts with a basic premise, a foundation, and builds onto it one concept at a time, until he's explored an entire tree of related ideas. This book covers everything from the initial idea through how a game is constructed to how a pitch for a game could be written and delivered. If you want to learn how to write an adventure, or code a physics engine, or compose a score, there are other works for those. This volume digs into the theoretical underpinnings, starting with the question, what is a game? I've been writing roleplaying game material for over... more two decades. I thought I knew roughly what I was doing. After reading this, I not only understand what it is I've been trying to do, but why.
review 2: This is a must read for anyone interested in Game Design. Schell covers a wide range of topics, each of which are handled nicely. The section on Probability is noteworthy for its succinct presentation on this deep topic. Both tabletop games and video games are covered throughout, with the scale tipping towards video games. This is not a "fast" read, as there is a great deal of useful material presented, and you will want to take some time to reflect, before moving on. I'm sure that I'll be re-reading this again in the future. less

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