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The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses

Jesse Schell · 5 HN comments
HN Books has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" by Jesse Schell.
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Amazon Summary
Anyone can master the fundamentals of game design - no technological expertise is necessary. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality videogames. Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses - one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer - and will understand how to do it. * Jesse Schell is a highly recognizable name within the game indu
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Hacker News Stories and Comments

All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.
Feb 08, 2018 · ebspelman on Why Toys?
This reminds me a lot of a chapter in Jesse Schell's awesome book, The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses.[1][2]

He recommends occasionally thinking about a game as a toy.

"The Lens of The Toy: To use this lens, stop thinking about whether your game is fun to play, and start thinking about whether it is fun to play with."

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Book-Lenses/dp/012369...

[2] PDF version (see book page 90 // PDF page 119): http://www.sg4adults.eu/files/art-game-design.pdf

runevault
I actually just bought this book and it is arriving Friday. Funny to see the pdf now, but I think in the end this is a case I'll appreciate having a physical copy.
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Sep 01, 2013 · unoti on Books For Game Developers
I would put "The Art of Game Design" at the front of the bookshelf of anyone that does game design work: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/01236949.... To me, this is the most valuable book I have on my bookshelf. Every time I pick it up, I scarcely read more than a few pages before I'm setting the book down to make a bunch of notes for new ideas I've had. The book is truly outstanding and practical, and will help give you a framework for figuring out what you want our game to be.

I've been developing games independently now for several years. Easily the most difficult part is the design. Merely implementing the game-- if only that was my biggest challenge!

His book is also excellent: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0123694965?ie=UTF8&ta... - I checked it out of the library recently and it really is a bible for game design. It literally covers everything you'd want to know about making high-quality games.
Links to a presentation by Jesse Schell, whose book on game design - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0123694965?ie=UTF8&ta... - I read recently. If you're at all interested in getting into games, this is such an essential read. It literally covers everything, from discussing the nature of play and fun, through the details of mechanics and story, to the reality of working with a team and pitching to clients. It really is an excellent book, and has inspired me to start making games again.

Considering it's get overwhelmingly positive reviews on Amazon, I'd actually be interested to hear from someone who didn't like it (I always like finding negative reviews of things I like).

The actual game flOw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(video_game)) came out of this research. The use of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theories of flow have been part of game design for a long time, and most of the stuff in the thesis is basically common sense with a few interesting thinking points.

Some other great literature on games that also discuss flow can be found in Jesse Schell's book (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694...) or in Steve Swink's book (http://www.amazon.com/Game-Feel-Designers-Sensation-Kaufmann...).

(edit: no coffee yet)

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