Recommended reading for Game Design

A good thing to do is analyzing games that did it right and reading their design documents (if available).
An excellent example would be reading Half-Life 2: Raising The Bar, then playing Half-Life 2 and paying attention to the details.

From time to time Yahtzee's Extra Punctuation (not Zero Punctuation) tackles some gamedesign topics: Link.
Then there's also the obious: Extra Credits: Link.

 

David Perry On Game Design (David Perry & Rusel DeMaria)
Level Up! The Guide To Great Video Game Design (Scott Rogers)
Creating Emotion In Games (David Freeman)*

* rather specific topic but a great read nevertheless

 

Good Games, Bad Design - Critical analysis of Castlevania III
Finding The Fun Medusa Heads In Castlevania - In depth look at one of gaming's most annoying enemies.
Beginning Level Design, Part 1 - Gamasutra article where Tim Ryan talks about the basics of level design.
Secrets of the Sages: Level Design - Old Gamasutra article with design tips from Tim Willits, The Levelord, Paul Jaquays, John Romero, Cliff Bleszinski, Marc Laidlaw, Eric Biessman, and Paul O'Connor.

I really like analysis of the use of space in old games, and teaching the player how to play the game environmentally. It makes me realize how much I still have to learn.

 

Of the books listed so far, I think Level Up! is the best practical guide. Art of Game Design reads like it would be really practical, but after the first read-through I just never ended up going back to it. It's definitely worth that first read, though.

Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives could be useful if you're just getting started with traditional RPG-style quests, but it could be meatier, and a large chunk of book is just a reprint of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design is a good practical guide to working as a video game writer and designing narrative elements -- or retrofitting them into a game that has gameplay but no story yet, which it sounds like they get hired to do often.

 

Schell's "Art of Game Design" is my favorite. And, of course, I'd be remiss, if I didn't recommend, "Flow, Motivation, and Fun!", which is my chapter from an upcoming book.

Gigi

 

Speaking of loosening our 'reading' restriction...

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020797/Behind-the-Realm - the GDC 2014 presentation by Yoshida Naoki, has all sorts of good info.

Design Club: Super Mario Bros. World 1-1 - A Master's Class In Level Design

Design Club: Summoner's Rift - How Level Design can provide mechanics without writing a line of code.

Design Club: Test Chambers - How non-textual hints help players understand what they have to do.

 

Game Feel by Steve Swink was Ok, it's pretty simplistic but gives some good tips to people who aren't experienced in design, if you are in a situation were your game just doesn't feel good then this is worth a read to see how you could fix the issues. Also everything seems to be targeted towards Unity development so that's cool!

 

I've got a new one - Character Development and Storytelling for Games by Steve Sheldon.(Amazon)

 

Game UI By Example: A Crash Course in the Good and the Bad

another persons opinion you may not agree , but maybe of value. Link

Help Guide in making HUDS Link

 

I just received Game Design: Theory & Practice from Amazon (used section) last evening.
So far I have only gave it a quick flip-through and it looks really good. The brief paragraphs I read match my own views so that is promising. It looks quite thorough. Over 600 pages.

 

I just read it and agree with most of it. You've done an excellent job staying focused on the subject and packing a lot of good information into your writing instead of adding fluff and rehashing fo push the page count higher. Regarding player death (a discussion of which is in this forum) I think forcing a delay can create a disconnect instead of a period of reflection helping the player get back into the flow. Not always of course. For example, if I feel like I've just had a very intense gaming session in D3 sometimes I welcome a short break. In that context, a short break to reflect on lessons learned could help me to reconnect. But for many games, throwing (or at least letting me get) back into the action without delay keeps me connected and in that state of flow. I probably already have a strategy I am eager to try so a forced delay is just annoying me. Still, I definitely agree about flow. That is golden. The essence of game-play. Well done!

 

What do you think of this book? It's been on my Amazon wishlist for ages, but no one's reviewed it yet.

 

So far, it's a good read, but it's not dense with tips on how to improve your writing early on. He starts off slow with examples from classical literature (e.g. Homer, Socrates, etc.) and some hand-written preludes to larger topics (I like the start of the 'book' "Respecting Characters" in particular.) It's about at that point that he starts giving more and more techniques. I haven't gotten much further (I've been sick the last couple of days, and thus haven't been doing much reading), but it's turning out to be actually useful. Recommended.

 

Thanks!

 

Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C#
by Jeremy Gibson
ISBN: 978-0321933164

 

The videos look great! But I cannot stand the voices. They give me the same sensation as someone pulling their fingernails across a blackboard. Ewww.

Thanks for all the book recommendations though! I have read some of them but I see lots of new ones.