eddyfate

Since game design is soon to be my primary profession (although that still doesn't seem quite real yet), I decided to do something I never really had the time to do when I was working two jobs -- expand on my formal study of game design. Thus far I had relied on reading and playing tons of role-playing games, card games, board games, video games, LARPs and so on, but my research into theory consisted primarily of The Forge and similar online discussions, and my battered copy of Rules of Play.

Rules of Play has been my bible for much of my career, but I hadn't had a chance to sit down and reread it from cover-to-cover for nearly four years. I've learned a lot about game design since then, so it's definitely worth a reread to see what new things I can pick out. Also, since it's a textbook, it has copious footnotes and an extensive bibliography, so I can start picking articles and books I want to read in the future. I cannot recommend this book enough to any game designer, whether they work on video games, board games, card games, role-playing games, LARPs -- just about every kind of game, even sports and children's games, are covered and explored to find the underlying theories and commonalities. It's a thick book, but pretty easy to read, and has some interesting exercises.

On a lark, I did a search on MIT Press to see if there was a new edition of the book, and it turns out that the authors put out a companion volume called The Game Design Reader, which is full of various essays that relate to the core text. I was able to score a copy on Amazon for about $32.

So I've shoved Rules of Play into my bag, and I plan to pour through it and the Reader during the bits and pieces of time I have before I move. I'm really excited that I can dig into this kind of research again.