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
[...]
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
[...]
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
[...]
Keywords : jesse schell, game design tool, cards, lens
Help the mayor of Hutnet Island to save is Island from the sunshine. In this Serious Game the player is invited to think about the paper sheet consommation. Publications related to this project Julian Alvarez, Valérie Maffiolo "Etude de l'impact de communications électroniques basées sur le Serious game - 2ème approche" SEE / Revue REE, ISSN 1265-6534, n°4, 2011, p. 75, 2011. Site de la revue
Keywords : serious game, ecology
Flee the Skip is a multiplayer Serious Game. You need 4 users to play. The game improves your solidarity by stressing you by this way: be able to escape from the skip in 20 minutes. But all the players must flee away. If one of you is left, the game is over. The players control mobile phones. Publications related to this project Julian Alvarez, Valérie Maffiolo "Etude de l'impact de communications électroniques basées sur le Serious game
[...]
Keywords : serious game, co-operation
Le jeu sérieux : un nouvel horizon pour l'Ecole ? Entretien avec Julian Alvarez Par François JarraudDe temps en temps, une thèse déplace la réflexion habituelle sur l'Ecole et lui ouvre une nouvelle fenêtre. C'est le cas de la recherche de Julian Alvarez sur le "jeu sérieux" (serious game). Elevé lui-même dans 3 systèmes éducatifs différents, il a retenu de son éducation suédoise l'id&e
[...]
Keywords : teaching, serious game
Keywords : gameplay, sémiotique
This paper is part of an experimental approach aimed to study the nature of videogames. We will focus on videogames rules in order to try to understand the anatomy of a videogame. Being inspired by the methodology that Propp used for his classification of Russian fairy tales, we have cleared out recurrent diagrams within rules of videogames. We then analyzed these rules diagrams by using the definition of a game drawn by Salen & Zimmerman, which led us to propose a definition for the n
[...]
Keywords : Rules, Gameplay, Videogames, Typology, Classification
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
[...]
Keywords : history, computer, role playing game, rpg, ultima, might & magic, goldbox, mud
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
[...]
Keywords : video game addiction, parent handbook, simple, practical, testimony