Challenges for Game Designers

by Brenda Brathwaite, Ian Schreiber

Welcome to a book written to challenge you, improve your brainstorming abilities, and sharpen your game design skills! Challenges for Game 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. The book is useful for professional designers, aspiring designers, and instructors who tea

Genres: Game Design, Games, Nonfiction, Design, Gaming, Education, Reference

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2008

Reviews

[Diz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very specific in what it offers to readers, and does what it is designed to do very well. However, there are two points readers should be clear on before purchasing this book.

First, this is a book on tabletop game design for video game designers. As such, there are frequent references to video games in explaining tabletop game design elements. Also, the aim of the book is strengthen video game designers' understanding of what makes games fun. In other words, it is assumed that those taking the course that this book offers will take that understanding and apply it to their video game designs rather than becoming board game designers. If you were looking for a book strictly on board game design, this isn't the one that you are looking for.

Second, this book focuses on the concept of learning by doing, so it is filled with challenges and project ideas. It is assumed that an understanding of the concepts discussed will come from working on these project. If you are looking for board game design project ideas, there are an endless number of project ideas in this book. In fact, there are so many project ideas that I find it hard to believe that they can all be completed in one course. Perhaps students would have to do a lot of work outside of class. If you aren't planning to do the projects, the actual instruction part of the book is a bit thin. If you skip reading the project ideas, then there isn't much left to the book. So, I would only recommend buying this if you are willing to do at least a few of the projects listed in this book.

[Michael Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenges for Game Designers is an introductory-to-intermediate-level book into game design, covering world and system design, game writing, content design, and user interface design. The book is structured into 21 chapters; each chapter covers briefly a specific topic, such as Puzzles or Casual Games, and presents the reader with a set of challenges of increasing difficulty. Each chapter presents taxonomies of notions relevant to the topic, and the specific challenges, DOs, and the DON'Ts. The final challenge of each chapter is fun and, at the same time, pushes hard the limits of an intermediate-level designer. The limited size of the chapters, which leads to high density of concepts, is compensated by the presence of lists and summaries. The writing style is accessible and understanding the text requires little computer knowledge, although video game design receives much attention. Overall, an enjoyable and useful read for its intended audience.

[Stacey Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most creative professionals understand that constraints foster creativity, and this is the approach Challenges for Game Designers uses to encourage designers toward brilliant games, since most people, given a problem, will naturally tap into creative insights to find a solution. Designed for beginner to intermediate designers, each chapter focuses on certain aspects of game design: genre, manipulating mechanics, drawing from personal experiences, and so on to explore design problems and help the reader understand how designers think. The challenges are interesting and themselves creative.

The chapters are structured such that they provide a short introduction--usually only a few pages--to basic game design ideals. Each chapter then provides 5 design challenges, complete with concept, goal, and expected deliverables. Additional challenge ideas are available on the last page of the chapter. Though not as fleshed-out (which comes with pros and cons), these are also great motivators for designers to think of solutions to interesting problems.

Mostly, the challenges serve as the boundaries and starting point; designers have enough of an outline to avoid the anxieties that come with a blank page, while still having enough open-endedness to allow for innovative design.

[yuc yuc · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "game design challenges" at the end of each chapter is really interesting and creativity-provoking, however, the text is not that helpful.

I would only recommend this book if you are reading it with other people, since most of the challenges require a group to work on.

For solo dev, just read "The Art of Game Design" and work on your own project.

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the book. Focusses on challenges/exercises for you to do in order to improve specific aspects of your game design skills. While also providing a nice short theoretical foundation for each aspect.

I felt the theory was a nice addition to theory from books like 'The Art of Game Design' and 'Game Design Workshop'.

The exercises in this book are larger in scope than those from 'Game Design Workshop'. This may make the exercises look daunting and they are indeed time consuming, but they help you improve the aspects of your game design skills which you want to work on. If the challenges proof too large in scope, a book like 'Game Design Workshop' will help you get ready for this book.

[Tom M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solid, insightful book on design for both digital and non-digital games. The chapters each focus on a different aspect of game design elements, with real world examples. Chapters end with exercises for students to prepare them for a career in game design.

As a board game enthusiast and would-be board game designer, this was managed to be both a thoughtful and fun read. Highly recommended.

[Roger Tavares · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a very good book, but i really didn´t like the "how to" parts, and the book lacks some in-depth commentaries and conceptualization.
I will use it in my classes.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent content with a short chapters explaining concepts followed by exercises. very excited to do some exercises!

Strong start but some of the later chapters were slower or feel dated (e.g. 2008's perspective on mobile and multiplayer gaming). On the other hand some of the exercises feel prescient when the propose mini exercises that have actually become real, successful games!

[Barış Gün · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenges in the first half was very fun to think about them, but i can't say the same about second half of it. I think topics like serious games, educational games, games as arts are not simple enough to explain in 15 page. In most cases at least one field professional required to asist while developing such games. It was boring to think about these challenges without proper knowledgebase.

[Jan Holan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Něco zastaralo (hehe, pasáž o hrách na sociálních sítích), ale jinak vlastně príma čtení. Sním o alternativním vesmíru, kdy budu mít rok volna a jen si budu pro radost procházet všechny ty designová zadání. A kdybych někam šel učit o game designu, tak si z toho vytáhnu nějaká moudra.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a great book.

[Crwth]

The first few chapters have been very interesting and enlightening; unfortunately, they require a lot of hands-on interaction, which requires time, which is something I'm lacking. Also, I've found with the first two projects that it was useful to do them in tandem with a friend, to compare results, and this extra requirement to read the book just adds to the delay in finishing it through.

[Joshua Castleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tons of great insight into what makes a good game, and how to apply that. Lots of useful exercises to try things out and give ideas. If you're interested in game design, this needs to be on your bookshelf!

[Al Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great tool for teachers and students of Game design at all levels, especially beginners.

[ramezan]

کار خودش رو خوب انجام داد. ولی اصلش به تمریناشه. باید برگردم سر وقتش دوباره.