Game Design Books

[teyrnon]

The other day a friend asked me about books on game design. She didn't think there were any but I was certain I had a couple at home. I took a look around and found two books:

The Game Inventor's Guidebook by Brian Tinsman
Game Design Volume 1: Theory and Practice by Nick Schuessler and Steve Jackson

These are both somewhat old. Another one which I've found extremely useful is:

Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games by Whitson John Kirk III

That's only three though so I decided to do some online research and find a few other books on game design that might be useful. I found four that look to be the most promising. They are:

A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman
Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, and Playtesting Games by Tracy Fullerton, Christopher Swain, and Steven Hoffman
The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook by Richard Levy, Ronald O. Weingartner

I haven't had oppurtunity to look at any of these yet but intend to look into them when I can. I'll probably post mini-reviews of some sort here when I do.

Comments

Re: bleh.

[cybermystic.livejournal.com]

I should also note that this is an example of two people speaking at cross purposes to some extent. I misunderstood her position and despite speaking of it a couple times on that day neither of us ever realised we weren't on the same page either. I wonder if this is how many misunderstandings are born. Hmm...