An excellent book about the design of games written by Jesse Schell, a game designer who worked on Disneyland attractions and on the kids MMO Toontown Online, among others. With over 500 book pages, the author details the different aspects of the professional game design process, and explain how a game designer can influence them: game design documents, mechanics, interface, characters, the "client" funding the game, player's emotions, the game designer's artistic motivation... Besides
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Keywords : game design, examples, in-depth, jesse schell, disney
Over a series of 7 books, Florent Gorges wrote the most complete history of Nintendo. The texts are easy to read and full of unique information, and are illustrated with many pictures of all the games and toys created by the company. This first book in the series is focused on the numerous creations made by Nintendo before entering the video and electronic games market: playing cards, toys, arcades, and some weird stuffs like office supplies. An absolute must-read book.This book was translated i
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Keywords : history, nintendo, toys, cards
The "deck of lenses" isn't a book, but a set of 100 cards that complete the book "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses", by the same author. Each card represents one of the "lens" invented by Jesse Schell. A "lens" is a kind of "viewing angle" allowing the game designer to focus on a particular aspect of his game. These "lenses" are composed by a series of questions. For example, the "lens of judgement" makes the game d
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Keywords : jesse schell, game design tool, cards, lens
This is an heavy-weight (450 pages) book dedicated to the history of computer role-playing games. The purpose of the book isn't to provide information about how the game were made (there is no developer interview here), but to picture a general overview of the role-playing game genre through a detailed presentation of the most influential titles. The book is organized in chronological order. Each chapter focuses on a selection of games coming from a specific era: the pen-and-paper role-playing g
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Keywords : history, computer, role playing game, rpg, ultima, might & magic, goldbox, mud
A tiny (80 pages) scientific book gathering 8 contributions from researchers who are studying Serious Games for education.
Keywords : serious games, education, scientific research
A book addressing the delicate "video game addiction" topic in a clear and thoughtful way. The book is suited to parents of young video game players, and explains the current state of scientific knowledge on this topic: in spite of what some un-rigourous journalists might say, video games are not a "drug", but some players may be in a "excessive playtime" state which they sometimes need help to escape from. To help parents achieve this goal, the book briefly introdu
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Keywords : video game addiction, parent handbook, simple, practical, testimony
Spinoff created from Game Classification, this website aims to gather and classify as many Serious Games as possible. Therefore, it relies on a classification model designed for Serious Games, the G/P/S model (Gameplay / Purpose / Scope). http://serious.gameclassification.com/ Publications related to this project Damien Djaouti, Julian Alvarez, Jean-Pierre Jessel, Olivier Rampnoux "Origins of Serious Games" Minhua Ma, Andrea Oikonomou, Lakhmi C. Jain (eds.), « Serio
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Keywords : serious game, classification
If you want to read only one book about Game Design, it should be this one. With over 450 pages, this "Game Design Bible" will allow you to truly understand how to create games. Among other topics, this book deals in great details with prototyping, the structure of a game (formal elements, dramatic elements, system dynamic...) or the day-to-day activity of a professional Game Designer working in the industry. As a talented Game Design teacher, Tracy Fullerton offers here a level of tho
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Keywords : game design, study, examples, practical
In this book , James Paul Gee, a researcher in learning sciences, explores the potential of (all) video games for learning. Through an analysis of entertainment video games, he deduces a set of 36 "learning principles" used by video games to teach content or skills to players. This book then details these 36 "learning principles", such as the "multiple routes principle" or the "incremental principle", in order to give ideas to teachers on how to improve th
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Keywords : video game, learning principle, serious gaming
This book is a detailed study of the expressive potential of video games. The author analyses many examples of games broadcasting messages, related to politics, advertising and education. This study allows Ian Bogost, a media researcher and game designer, to introduce the concept of "procedural rhetoric", i.e. the use of games rules to broadcast messages. This book is very brilliant: full of relevant examples, it features an analysis that will undoubtedly inspires any creator or resear
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Keywords : serious game, procedural rhetoric, analysis, research, example