10 Best Game Design Books
1. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
A visionary game designer reveals how we can harness the power of games to boost global happiness.
With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking book, she shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world-from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change-and introduces us to cutting-edge games that are already changing the business, education, and nonprofit worlds. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows that the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games.
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2. Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom
The biggest challenge facing many game programmers is completing their game. Most game projects fizzle out, overwhelmed by the complexity of their own code. Game Programming Patterns tackles that exact problem. Based on years of experience in shipped AAA titles, this book collects proven patterns to untangle and optimize your game, organized as independent recipes so you can pick just the patterns you need.
You will learn how to write a robust game loop, how to organize your entities using components, and take advantage of the CPUs cache to improve your performance. You’ll dive deep into how scripting engines encode behavior, how quadtrees and other spatial partitions optimize your engine, and how other classic design patterns can be used in games.
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3. The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille and John Zuur Platten
Authors are top game designers. Aspiring game writers and designers must have this complete bible.
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4. Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers
If you want to design and build cutting-edge video games but aren’t sure where to start, then the SECOND EDITION of the acclaimed Level Up! is for you! Written by leading video game expert Scott Rogers, who has designed the hits Pac Man World, Maximo and SpongeBob Squarepants, this updated edition provides clear and well-thought out examples that forgo theoretical gobbledygook with charmingly illustrated concepts and solutions based on years of professional experience.
Level Up! 2nd Edition has been NEWLY EXPANDED to teach you how to develop marketable ideas, learn what perils and pitfalls await during a game’s pre-production, production and post-production stages, and provide even more creative ideas to serve as fuel for your own projects including:
- Developing your game design from the spark of inspiration all the way to production
- Learning how to design the most exciting levels, the most precise controls, and the fiercest foes that will keep your players challenged
- Creating games for mobile and console systems — including detailed rules for touch and motion controls
- Monetizing your game from the design up
- Writing effective and professional design documents with the help of brand new examples
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5. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell
Good game design happens when you view your game from as many perspectives as possible. Written by one of the world’s top game designers, The Art of Game Design presents 100+ sets of questions, or different lenses, for viewing a game’s design, encompassing diverse fields such as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, puzzle design, and anthropology. This Second Edition of a Game Developer Front Line Award winner:
- Describes the deepest and most fundamental principles of game design
- Demonstrates how tactics used in board, card, and athletic games also work in top-quality video games
- Contains valuable insight from Jesse Schell, the former chair of the International Game Developers Association and award-winning designer of Disney online games
The Art of Game Design, Second Edition gives readers useful perspectives on how to make better game designs faster. It provides practical instruction on creating world-class games that will be played again and again.
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6. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals by Katie Salen Tekinbas adEric Zimmerman
An impassioned look at games and game design that offers the most ambitious framework for understanding them to date.
As pop culture, games are as important as film or television―but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like “play,” “design,” and “interactivity.” They look at games through a series of eighteen “game design schemas,” or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance.
Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.
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7. Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
Now in full color, the 10th anniversary edition of this classic book takes you deep into the influences that underlie modern video games, and examines the elements they share with traditional games such as checkers. At the heart of his exploration, veteran game designer Raph Koster takes a close look at the concept of fun and why it’s the most vital element in any game.
Why do some games become boring quickly, while others remain fun for years? How do games serve as fundamental and powerful learning tools? Whether you’re a game developer, dedicated gamer, or curious observer, this illustrated, fully updated edition helps you understand what drives this major cultural force, and inspires you to take it further.
You’ll discover that:
- Games play into our innate ability to seek patterns and solve puzzles
- Most successful games are built upon the same elements
- Slightly more females than males now play games
- Many games still teach primitive survival skills
- Fictional dressing for modern games is more developed than the conceptual elements
- Truly creative designers seldom use other games for inspiration
- Games are beginning to evolve beyond their prehistoric origins
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8. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games by Tracy Fullerton
Create the Digital Games You Love to Play
Discover an exercise-driven, non-technical approach to game design without the need for programming or artistic expertise using Game Design Workshop, Third Edition.
Author Tracy Fullerton demystifies the creative process with a clear and accessible analysis of the formal and dramatic systems of game design. Examples of popular games, illustrations of design techniques, and refined exercises strengthen your understanding of how game systems function and give you the skills and tools necessary to create a compelling and engaging game.
The book puts you to work prototyping, playtesting, and revising your own games with time-tested methods and tools. It provides you with the foundation to advance your career in any facet of the game industry, including design, producing, programming, and visual design.
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9. Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber
Welcome to a book written to challenge you, improve your brainstorming abilities, and sharpen your game design skills! Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers is filled with enjoyable, interesting, and challenging exercises to help you become a better video game designer, whether you are a professional or aspire to be. Each chapter covers a different topic important to game designers, and was taken from actual industry experience. After a brief overview of the topic, there are five challenges that each take less than two hours and allow you to apply the material, explore the topic, and expand your knowledge in that area. Each chapter also includes 10 “non-digital shorts” to further hone your skills. None of the challenges in the book require any programming or a computer, but many of the topics feature challenges that can be made into fully functioning games.
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10. The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Fieldbook: Ideas into Practice by Karl M. Kapp
Following Karl Kapp’s earlier book The Gamification of Learning and Instruction, this Fieldbook provides a step-by-step approach to implementing the concepts from the Gamification book with examples, tips, tricks, and worksheets to help a learning professional or faculty member put the ideas into practice. The Online Workbook, designed largely for students using the original book as a textbook, includes quizzes, worksheets and fill-in-the-blank areas that will help a student to better understand the ideas, concepts and elements of incorporating gamification into learning.
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