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Seven books for those who want to become a game designer / Habr

This article explores when and how game design became a profession, as well as how it evolved into a discipline of its own. We will also offer 7 books that every game designer should read. We’ll explain what’s so special about these books and how they will enable you to become a professional game designer. There are other articles recommending game design books, but the authors don’t specify a specific reading order. We have listed the books in a specific order, allowing the reader to smoothly increase their game design skills. Moreover, the article details the order and reasons for studying these books.

This article is not a marketing of the materials described, but rather information about where and what to study.

Introduction

Humanity has been playing games for thousands of years. We play some of them today (see table 1). Not only for humans, but also for many animals, play is a critical form of self-development. The game teaches vital skills for their future life [1].

Table 1: Games played for thousands of years

But when did game development become a profession? How much knowledge and skills have we accumulated so far? How mature has our knowledge become?

In this article, you will learn how game design became a profession. And if we want to create games, then

1. what we need to learn,
2. what sources to study?

Game design as a profession

Video games were born in the 1950s as a result of purely scientific research. Soon, at 1971 the first arcade games were created (Galaxy Game, Computer Space). In 1972, the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, was released, allowing you to play video games at home. 1978 is considered the beginning of the Golden Age of arcade video games. [2]

So in the early 70’s people started making money making games. Making games began to make a profit, and therefore companies needed more professionals who could make them. That is, the profession of a game designer appeared about 50 years ago.

(As Scott Rogers mentioned in the comments, “People have been making money designing games since 1883”, but there was no game market at that time where a significant number of professionals could work as game developers. )

Over time, new platforms appeared, were developed technology and game developers became more and more people. Naturally, it was important for specialists to know why some games are more exciting than others. How to make better games? In an attempt to answer this question, we have accumulated enough knowledge to be able to talk about game design not just as a profession, but also as a separate discipline. figure 1 shows important milestones that influenced the development of game design as a separate discipline.

Figure 1. Game design becomes a separate discipline.

Some timeline data:

• The first GDC game development conference was hosted by Chris Crawford in 1988 in his living room. It was attended by only 27 game designers. The second conference, held in the same year, attracted the attention of about 125 specialists. [3]
• Schools of game design that offer a degree in game design:

degree in game design

• Game design books and when they were first published:

Someone can say that game design schools existed in the world before 1998 years (for example, LED school in Osaka in 1986 [7]). Or that the first game design book was not written in 2002, but much earlier (for example, The Art of Computer Game Design by Chris Crawford, the first edition of which appeared in 1984). But these are more exceptions than rules. The timeline has marked periods when a significant number of books have been released or a significant number of institutions offering degrees in game design have emerged.

Looking at Figure 1 , one can understand that structured knowledge and sources, such as educational institutions and literature, appeared in the early 2000s. That is, game design as a discipline originated in the early 2000s and is only 20 years old.

This, in turn, means that a significant amount of knowledge and experience has been accumulated, so this structured knowledge should be studied. The essence of cultural evolution is that we don’t have to rediscover everything from scratch; we learn from the experience of others, and then we study and invent ourselves. After all, if you want to become a doctor, artist, physicist, engineer, musician, or filmmaker, you first learn what you already know and then try to expand the boundaries of knowledge. Some brilliant game designers like

1. Shigeru Miyamoto (studied industrial design),
2. Will Wright (studied architecture, mechanical engineering),
3. Sid Meyer (studied computer science),
4. Hideo Kojima (studied economics)

created many great games without any formal training in game design. However, it would be wrong to think that education in game design is useless. Explore modern possibilities that were not available to these designers [8].

On the other hand, it is important to say that learning from learning materials is only one side of the coin – theory. Of course, it is necessary to combine theory and practice. By playing, analyzing both good and bad games, as well as creating your own, you learn the other side. And for a game designer, both of these activities should become part of everyday life.

7 must-read books on game design

Now let’s talk about the must-read books that I have chosen for this article. Books are ordered by increasing difficulty, i.e. the first books are good for beginners, while later books provide more advanced or supportive content.

1) Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games by Tracy Fullerton

Recommended for Beginner and Intermediate Levels

There are two reasons why this book is a good place to start learning about game design. The author, Tracey Fullerton is a professor at USC Interactive Media & Games Division, and reading the book feels like a textbook written for her students. The book is written in a very accessible language, well structured and covers the most important topics that a game designer needs. Everything is revealed in it: the professional duties of a game designer, the stage of the idea of ​​a game, prototyping, balancing, working as a game designer, and much more. In this book, you will learn the following:

1. Formal elements. These are the elements that create the structure of the game, without them it does not exist.
2. Dramatic elements. These are elements that set the context of the gameplay and captivate the player emotionally.
3. Proper Game Prototyping
4. Playtesting games and analyzing test results
5. How to work as a game designer.

Also in this book there are extremely valuable special chapters called Designer Perspective . These are chapters of several pages, introducing the reader to different designers, their work and advice. You will notice that each game designer has something unique, but at the same time they have common characteristics. In addition, you will understand what it means to be a game designer. Also in the book there are many references to other books, games and articles for further study.

2) The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell

Recommended for beginner and intermediate levels
[An unofficial translation called “The Art of Game Design” can be found online]

This book is very similar to the first in that it can also be used as a textbook: it also covers almost every topic a game designer needs to understand . This book is also very well structured and easy to understand, with very rich content, yet accessible to beginners. Curiously, this book gives the reader 113 lenses. Each loop is a unique perspective on one particular aspect of the game. Each loop has a few questions to ask yourself to understand if your playing fits that loop and how to improve your playing in that particular aspect. For example, loupe 40 (one of my favorites) is called “Triangular loupe” (see Figure 2 ). Almost every good game has a triangle, which is essentially a balance between risk and reward, giving the player the choice of taking a risk to get a bigger reward, or to be safe by choosing a smaller one.

Figure 2: triangular magnifier

By the way, the magnifiers presented in the book are also collected in a deck, which is sold separately. It’s called “The Art of Game Design: A Deck of Lenses” ( Figure 2 shows one of the deck’s lenses).

3) Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation by Steve Swink

Recommended for intermediate to advanced levels

After reading the above two great books, it’s time to move on to more advanced information. Game Feel is an outstanding book, and no other book has the information in it. In essence, this book explains how the feeling of the game is formed in the process of interaction with it. It explains why two games can feel very similar, but one feels good and the other feels bad. From the book you will learn the following:

1. how human perception works
2. about the three building blocks of game experience (real-time control, polish, and simulated space)
3. about the six metrics of game experience (input, reaction, context, refinement, metaphor, rules)

The book breaks down several well-known games and, based on these metrics, explains why these games seem to be good. This book is an excellent work exploring perception and what makes games feel good.

4) Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans

Recommended for intermediate and advanced levels

This is also an outstanding book at a more difficult level, although very different from the previous one. This game divides games into two types – emergent property games and development games. The book covers aspects of both types of game design well, but focuses primarily on emergent games. These are games with relatively simple rules, but with more variation and difficulty; the development of events in them is not planned in advance, but occurs during the game. Good examples of such games would be Chess, Go, SimCity, The Sims, Sid Meier’s Civilization, and so on.

1. The key idea of ​​the book is that the outcome of the game must be unpredictable. There are three ways to do this:
   
   • by chance (such as rolling dice or spinning a roulette wheel in a board game)
   • Player choices (example: any multiplayer game)
   • complex gameplay created by the rules of the game (example: chess)
2. The main theme of this book is the complex gameplay created by the rules of the game. The book explains that if we can create game mechanics such that the game becomes emergent, then it becomes interesting and replayable simply because of the mechanics (and not because of its aesthetics or story).
3. The book presents 16 game mechanics design patterns that can be used to create an emergent game.
4. It also describes a game design tool called “Machinations framework” created by Joris Dormans. The book explains how to use Machinations to model game mechanics and study how the game’s internal economy works. The free beta version of the Machinations framework can be downloaded here: machinations.io. As you read the book, you will need to study and apply this tool to understand the contents of the book.

“Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design” gives you the opportunity to perceive and understand game mechanics in a new way. This is a huge step forward towards abstracting and formalizing the creation, testing and balancing of game mechanics.

5) A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster

Recommended for intermediate to advanced levels

This is an excellent book by Raph Koster. Reading this book, I was struck by its uniqueness and power, as well as the amount of useful information for a game designer. However, I wouldn’t call it particularly practical. This book won’t give you specific tools to apply to your new game, but it will teach you:

1. the essence of what a game designer is,
2. how the human brain works, who are the players and what they want
3. when and why games get boring.

That is, it is more about the philosophy of game design and the psychology of a person as a player, and every game designer should know this information. While it doesn’t give you specific tools, it broadens your perspective on games. It will help you when creating levels to always provide players with something new and interesting, and so on. So don’t think of this book as just pure and useless theory. It will definitely make you a stronger game designer.

6) Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers

Recommended as a reading aid after the books listed

As the title suggests, this book is basically a guide. Its structure is more like a reference book. If she talks about a topic, then she lists all possible types on this topic. For example, all possible types of cameras, camera movements, UI elements, all clichéd video game themes, all possible types of enemies, and so on. Because of this, I honestly found it difficult to read, but the book is of great value. During game design brainstorming sessions, you will often notice that the ideas you have read about in this book are forming in your head. That is, it is definitely a very useful book for a game designer, enriching his baggage of game concepts. In addition, you will most likely find a lot of useful tips on level design, game object sizes, jump heights, and more.

7) Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Amy Wallace and Edwin Catmull

Recommended as a reading aid after the books listed

Walt Disney Animation Studios. This book is essentially his biography and Pixar history. This is definitely not a game design book. Then why do I think it’s a must-read for game designers? Because video game development, and game design in particular, is a very creative field. Usually people do not like boring and routine tasks, but want something more creative. But when faced with a creative challenge, they complain that the assignment is unclear and they don’t know exactly what needs to be done. And this book is for those situations. It teaches that creativity is the creation of something new and useful. When you do something new, you cannot be sure that you are moving in the right direction. That is, creativity is always accompanied by uncertainty. As a game designer, you need to have your own vision and make decisions in the face of this uncertainty. You must accept this uncertainty and keep moving in the dark. You will learn other important things from this book:

1. How to respond to problems
2. Turning an initial idea into something beautiful and mature at the end of a project
3. You must believe that the team has the true power of creativity. And with the right approach, you can release this potential or suppress it.
4. You will understand that failure is not always bad. If you do something new, you will fail, and more than once. You are protected from failure only when you do something that has long been mastered and repeated many times, which has nothing to do with creativity.

This book is full of useful advice, inspiring examples of the most successful and creative companies: Lucasfilms, Pixar and Disney. It will give you an understanding of how great products are made, which will be a great addition to your arsenal.

Bonus material

Recommended for amateurs and professionals

The 2018 Masterclass at https://www.masterclass.com features 21 video lectures by Will Wright. The master class is called Will Wright Teaches Game Design And Theory. This video course is an amazing inspirational and informative material that I recommend watching not only professional game designers, but also all people who love games. Will talks about specific challenges he has faced while working on The Sims, SimCity, Spore and many other games. He shares amazing details and shows with concrete examples how a game designer should think, how he should approach problems, and also gives practical tools for solving them.

Finally

Game design is a rather young discipline, it is only 20 years old. In the future, game designers and game researchers will invent and learn a lot more. Although this discipline is very new, quite a lot of knowledge has already accumulated in the form of books, articles, etc. I have listed 7 must-read books that will allow you to start from scratch and become a game designer – a specialist with an extensive set of tools for analyzing other people’s games and creating your own.

I repeat – if you only read, then without practice it will improve your skills very little. People learn by doing something (and teaching it to others). So you need to gradually apply the valuable tips you’ve learned from books to your prototypes and games, striving to make each new game at least a little better than the last.

References

1. 0065
2. https://www.bmigaming.com/videogamehistory.htm
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Developers_Conference
4. https://www.digipen.edu/about/our-history
5. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition by Tracy Fullerton
6. https://www.gamedesigning.org/schools/utah/
7. https://www.kotaku.com.au/2008/01/wanna_study_game_design_in_japan_heres_how-2
8. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-12-20-to-be-a-good-game-designer-you-have-to-be-a-good-designer-first

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