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## Art of Game Design (Book)

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Jilocasin
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### Art of Game Design (Book)

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Post by Jilocasin » Sat Feb 20, 2010 2:18 am

I was just made aware of this book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, and was wondering if anyone here has read it, and what impressions you got.
It looks intriguing and I think I might buy it, I just want to know if it has as much information as it claims.
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Judging__Eagle
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Post by Judging__Eagle » Sat Feb 20, 2010 4:14 pm

Looks interesting.
I'm not sure how useful it is, the author hasn't got any games to their resume; instead they worked for Disney on some projects, and 'teach' game design at a university.
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Juton
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Post by Juton » Sat Feb 20, 2010 6:03 pm

What the old maxim? Those who can, do. Those who can't critique. Those who can't critique teach.
I figure the book will be aimed more towards video game design but parts of it should overlap with table top gaming. It's not that expensive, but I bet you'd get as much from just listening earnestly to criticism.
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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Sat Feb 20, 2010 6:07 pm

They teach game design at CMU. Heh. AHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA HA HA HA HA...
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Starmaker
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Post by Starmaker » Sat Feb 20, 2010 6:49 pm

Page 102, breaking news: Females don't like games.
So, if women are not attracted by Jesse Schell's idea of what constitutes a game, I honestly see no reason in buying the book.
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Thymos
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Post by Thymos » Sat Feb 20, 2010 7:12 pm

To be honest video game companies learn so much by trial and error (with the exception of blizzard and valve) that I honestly wonder who is teaching these game design courses at college.
Heck, a lot of video game companies don't even learn.
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erik
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Post by erik » Sat Feb 20, 2010 7:18 pm

> CatharzGodfoot wrote:They teach game design at CMU. Heh. AHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA HA HA HA HA...

My brother actually first got his architecture degree there then a masters in that very program when it first started up.
He made decent money making computer games for the last several years specializing in level design (lots of 3-d modeling experience) though he recently got laid off. I hear he is once again gainfully employed.
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Sat Feb 20, 2010 7:55 pm

I've never read it, or met anyone who read it. But they have some reasonably impressive people who say it's good. Will Wright has earned my ire at Spore, but he really delivered with Pee.

> Starmaker wrote:Page 102, breaking news: Females don't like games.

Honestly, without the context of what is on the page, I couldn't tell you if that's a sarcastic comment or a misogynistic one.
I would be interested in someone actually reading it and delivering a report. Getting 24 5-star reviews on Amazon is interesting, but it could just be Review padding.
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mean_liar
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Post by mean_liar » Sat Feb 20, 2010 7:57 pm

There a good half-dozen books on game design at Amazon with 4 star+ review ratings.
Given how amorphous game design can be, I'm guessing they're like books on Project Management: common sense assumptions people with experience already make, a few unexpected strange idiosyncrasies of the author of which a small few are actually worthwhile, and a lot of bullshit filler. I've met ONE person who actually does his management in as nearly a quantitative (and therefore more easily taught) style as possible and its really impressive, but he only did it because he got his chops building nuclear power plants in Europe and not because he read some good books.
Who wants to drop $30 on a book that'll give up one or two gems?
If I had the time and inclination, I'd read them all and profit marginally by the experience. But I don't.
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Jilocasin
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Post by Jilocasin » Sat Feb 20, 2010 10:23 pm

Well, through the magic of the internet here's that page.

> Page 102 wrote: The Medium is the Misogynist?
> Males and females are different. They have different interests, different tastes, and different skills and abilities. Which of these are innate and which are learned is often difficult to say — and to a designer, it doesn’t much matter — what matters is acknowledging and designing for these differences.
> These differences show up in sharp relief when one examines videogame sales. The majority of videogames are played by boys and men. Some have suggested this is largely because of the male-oriented aesthetics of these games, which often feature aggressive male characters, graphic violence, and hyper-sexualized female characters. But experiments to change these aesthetics, while maintaining the same core gameplay mechanics, have largely failed. It would seem there are some deeper quality of games is the driving factor.
> Raph Koster, in his book A Theory of Fun, suggests that the core of playing and winning games is mastering abstract formal systems, which is something generally enjoyed more by boys and men than it is by girls and women. If this is the case (and it does seem to be true), then games at their core are an inherently more male than female activity.
> So how can we explain the fact that some games are very popular with girls and women? The answer is that just because games contain abstract formal systems at their core, it does not mean that finding and mastering these systems is the only experience that games can create. Instead, this core can support a wide variety of experiences that appeal to both genders, such as story, creativity, learning, and socialization. In this way, games are like apples: you can still enjoy the fruit even if you don’t like the core.
> Entire books have been written about the differences between how males and females play, and there is great debate about which kinds of play are really “more male” or “more female. ” There is certainly no definitive master list of what each gender prefers. The important thing is that you realize that there are some important differences, and that you carefully consider whether your game has the right features to delight the audience you are designing for. What follows is a short list of a few of the strongest differences between how males and females like to play. These are generalizations, certainly not true for every individual, but when making games for large audiences, generalizations are useful.

He then goes on to say that males tend to like mastery, competition, destruction, spatial puzzles, and trial and error. Then that females tend to like emotion, real world, nurturing, dialog and verbal puzzles, and learning by example.
At the start of the book there's a lot of woo in the vein of self-actualizing statements.

> I am a game designer.
> I am a game designer.
> I am a game designer.
> I am a game designer.

Seriously.
The crunch is kinda eh, I'm not going to browse the entire thing, but there are some sections on really basic math that you'd need for making a game. He goes on about various balance types. He also likes to stress that you aren't creating a game, you're creating an experience. I can't really say that he makes all bad points, although there are bad points, but most of it is so inherent in the process of making any sort of game that it should be stuff you naturally go through as long as you're getting actual criticism and feedback.
Last edited by Jilocasin on Sat Feb 20, 2010 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Starmaker
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Post by Starmaker » Sat Feb 20, 2010 10:55 pm

moar:
Five Things Males Like to See in Games according to The Art of Game Design
1. Mastery. Males enjoy mastering things. It doesn’t have to be something important or useful — it only has to be challenging. Females tend to be more interested in mastery when it has a meaningful purpose.

Oh, right, there's a meaningful purpose to gaming. Except there is, but hardly anyone thinks, "and now I'm going to play Tetris to enter a trancelike state, rewire my brain and achieve enlightenment".
2. Competition. Males really enjoy competing against others to prove that they are the best. For females, the bad feelings that can come from losing the game (or causing another player to lose) often outweigh the positive feelings that come from winning.

And that's why women are submissive bitches. Fan-fucking-tastic.
3. Destruction. Males like destroying things. A lot. Often, when young boys play with blocks, the most exciting part for them is not the building, but knocking down the tower once it is built. Videogames are a natural fit for this kind of gameplay, allowing for virtual destruction of a magnitude far greater than would be possible in the real world.

...what kind of gameplay? Destroying things you've invested labor into? Leveling to 20/30/80/whatever just so you can rip your character sheet/delete your account?
4. Spatial Puzzles. Studies have shown that males generally have stronger skills of spatial reasoning than females, and most people would agree that this matches anecdotal evidence. Accordingly, puzzles that involve navigating 3D spaces are often quite intriguing to males, while they can sometimes prove frustrating for females.

Fine, I'll accept his anecdotal evidence over my personal experience, but if males like mastery, why do they prefer 3D navigation games which are supposed to be easy for them?
5. Trial and Error. Women often joke that men hate reading directions, and there is some truth to that. Males tend to have a preference for learning things through trial and error. In a sense, this makes it easy to design interfaces for them, since they actually sometimes prefer an interface that requires some experimentation to understand, which ties into the pleasure of mastery.

People don't like reading manuals as preparation (preliminary work) for the game. Big surprise there.
Five Things Females Like to See in Games according to The Art of Game Design
1. Emotion. Females like experiences that explore the richness of human emotion. For males, emotion is an interesting component of an experience, but seldom an end in itself. A somewhat crass but telling example of this contrast can be found at the ends of the "romantic relationship media" spectrum. At one end are romance novels (one-third of all fiction books sold are romance novels), which focus primarily on the emotional aspects of romantic relationships, and are purchased almost exclusively by women. At the other end of the spectrum is pornography, which focuses primarily on the physical aspects of romantic relationships, and is purchased almost exclusively by men.

WAT.
2. Real World. Females tend to prefer entertainment that connects meaningfully to the real world. If you watch young girls and young boys play, girls will more frequently play games that are strongly connected to the real world (playing "house", pretending to be a veterinarian, playing dress up, etc.), whereas boys will more frequently take on the role of fantasy characters. One of the all-time best-selling computer game titles for girls was Barbie Fashion Designer, which lets girls design, print, and sew custom clothes for their real-world Barbie dolls.
Compare this to Barbie as Rapunzel, an adventure game in a fantasy setting. Although it featured the same character (Barbie), it did not have a real-world component, and was not nearly as popular.
This trend continues through adulthood — when things are connected to the real world in a meaningful way, women become more interested. Sometimes this is through the content (the Sims games, for example, have more female players than male, and their content is a simulation of the day-to-day life of ordinary people), and sometimes it is through the social aspects of the games. Playing with virtual players is "just pretend", but playing with real players can build real relationships.

One of the prominent male lifestyles in Russia has as one of its cornerstones eschewing fiction books in favor of political and military history books. On the other hand, women are often criticized for being "too much into this virtual shit". Also, Sims was specifically a game with virtual players.
3. Nurturing. Females enjoy nurturing. Girls enjoy taking care of baby dolls, toy pets, and children younger than themselves. It is not uncommon to see girls sacrifice a winning position in a competitive game to help a weaker player, partly because the relationships and feelings of the players are more important than the game, but partly out of the joy of nurturing. In the development of Toontown Online, a “healing” game mechanic was required for the combat system. We observed that healing other players was very appealing to girls and women we discussed the game with, and it was important to us that this game work equally well for males and females, so we made a bold decision. In most role-playing games, players mostly heal themselves, but have the option of healing others. In Toontown, you cannot heal yourself — only others. This increases the value of a player with healing skill and encourages nurturing play. A player who wants to can make healing their primary activity in Toontown.

Congratulations, you now share the blame for propagating the "healing bitch" role.
4. Dialog and Verbal Puzzles. It is often said that what females lack in spatial skills they make up for in increased verbal skills. Women purchase many more books than men do, and the audience for crossword puzzles is mostly female. Very few modern videogames do much very interesting or meaningful with dialog or verbal puzzles at this point in time, and this may be an untapped opportunity.

Were Infocom text adventures more popular with women?
5. Learning by Example. Just as males tend to eschew instructions, favoring a trial-and-error approach, females tend to prefer learning by example. They have a strong appreciation for clear tutorials that lead you carefully, step-by-step, so that when it is time to attempt a task, the player knows what she is supposed to do.

No one likes reading manuals, part 2. I was shocked to see the huge book Dominions 3 came with, and it does have clear tutorials.
Last edited by Starmaker on Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Psychic Robot
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Post by Psychic Robot » Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:02 pm

All those seem pretty accurate. And I'm pretty sure that the game is written for a different audience than those of us at TGD.

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KevinBlaze
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Post by KevinBlaze » Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:26 pm

I've read the book. Most of the lenses are brainstorming launch points. Like any guide to something that's more of a spark it's not going to give you the answers. I find it useful though to go flip through some lense lists occasionally when stuck on a game design issue. I certainly found it worth the 30some dollars. I would say there are about 6-8 gems in it, and a bunch of other stuff you could probably have written in a book yourself if you wanted to, but this guy did it for ya .
Last edited by KevinBlaze on Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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erik
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Post by erik » Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:36 pm

Wow, those 5 stereotypes are pretty solidly wrong for my wife. She likes smashing things, killing things, non-verbal puzzles, and generally repetitive or competitive stuff.
Some games she has put in a fair bit of time or interest: (we only has nintendo)
Mario Party 8
Luigi's Mansion
Super Smash Brothers
Mario Superstrikers
Mario Sunshine
Picmin 1 & 2
Eternal Darkness
X-Men
Lord of the Rings (the 3rd age) (turn based party combats)
Lord of the Rings (Return of the King) (move based real time combats, some sections are stupidly difficult)
Almost none of those games fit their scheme I think.
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ggroy
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Post by ggroy » Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:40 pm

Last edited by ggroy on Sat Mar 13, 2010 9:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Sun Feb 21, 2010 1:46 am

> Page 102, breaking news: Females don't like games.

Jeez, well HG Wells had that figgered out over a century ago in his intro to like the first game book ever.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Judging__Eagle
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Post by Judging__Eagle » Sun Feb 21, 2010 10:31 am

Except... you know... I've had a lot of women play at my D&D games (a little more than a 1/3 of the people I've DMed for have been female), and come back for more, and there wasn't always a ton of RP. Sometimes girls want to rip stuff up too.
The book seems overly simplistic, it's a "basics of" book, a primer. It's not going to give any sort of real information on game design or balance.
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