One thing I’ve learnt in my career is that the best books to read to learn about Game Design are rarely ever books about Game Design. Books about Game Design are a bit like mobile phones; sure they have a camera but when you want to take proper photo you need to reach for something more specialised.
However research papers are often very dull and you ussually need to have a dictionary on hand to make sense of them. So here are ten books that aren’t about Games Design but will make you a better Games Designer…
Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
This is something of a Bible among games designers and is always the first book I reccommend to people. While it’s marketted as a feel-good self help type book it really isn’t so don’t let the subtitle fool you.
The Design of Everyday Things – Donald Norman
Ever wonder why you sometimes try to push a pull door? Or why some TV remotes are easier to use than others? Don is here to explain all of this and more.
All the lessons in this book are easily transferred to Videogames and may change the way you look at the things you use everyday.
How to Lead – Jo Owen
A common mistake new Designers make is thinking that the most important part of being a Designer is “Designing”. It isn’t.
The most improtant part of a being a Designer is being a good Leader.
Designers are required to interact with everybody else on the team all the time. We are the people who have ideas and are then responsibile for convincing everybody else to follow us in developing them into a reality.
Every Designer has to be a Leader so better make sure you’re a good one.
Writers’s Journey – Christopher Vogler
I choose this version of the classic Heroes Journey because for me it was the easier one to read. It’s stuffed full of modern film references so you don’t need to know anything about mythology.
The Heroes Journey as a concept is important not just for story writing but story telling. Understanding what makes a good story helps you design a game that will give the player good stories of their own whether you’re making a narative heavy adventure game or a hardcore online shooter.
Universal Principles of Design
This is something of a guilty secret of mine. Every so often somebody would trot out a phrase like “Ockhams Razor” or “Hick’s Law” and I didn’t actually know what they meant.
This book includes 100 of the most basic Design Principles and concepts that every Designer should be aware of (but probably isn’t).
If you want to find ways to improve your documentation then this book is for you.
The Laws of Simplicity – J Maeda
As a Designer you can quickly get caught up in details and end up in a spiral of constantly adding to something.
At only 127 pages the book itself follows it’s own rules and keeps the topic of Simplicity… simple.
If you ever felt overwhelmed by the complexity of your own creations then you can learn to deal with it from this book.
Freakonomics – Levitt & Dubner
Learn to look at the world differently and find the true cause of something rather than the obvious one.
How did Legalising Abortion reduce the Crime Rate? Why is your boss more likely to steal a Bagel than you?
In a time when focus tests and usability studies are more and more common in games it’s important that you learn to look at Statistics from all angles.
Emotional Design – Donald Norman
Back with another great book Emotional Design examines how we relate to things emotionally.
Being able to identify the Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective elements of a Design and understanding the relationship between the box something came in and how people treat that thing can change how you think about your game.
More up to date than Everyday Things this book actually has an entire chapter on Videogames.
Creativity – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Creativity is a fairly nebulous concept. In the game industry you can be an artist without being remotely Creative.
Understanding what Creativity is and how to idenitify and nurture it is the difference between resigning yourself to working on boring licensed crud and celebrating the opportunities an established license gives you to revolutionise a genre.
In a Creative atmosphere with Creative people whatever you do will be Creative.
Hows and Whys of Level Design – Sjoerd De Jong
OK I lied. The tenth book is actually about Game Design.
However I have good reasons. There is very little printed on the art of Level Design and Hourence has managed to distill alot of concepts into a very easy to read PDF.
There is far more to Level Design than alot of people think and I feel that alot of the knowledge of Level Designers has been trivialised in the name of “making shit look cool”.
Level Design does not stop at Sketch-Up. It is merely the start.
2 Comments
Could I simply say what a alleviation to find somebody who essentially understands just what they may be talking about on the internet. You actually have learned to bring an issue to light and allow it to important. Even more people need to read it and understand this particular section of the story. I can’t believe you are not very popular as you clearly have the gift.
This is exactly what I was looking for so thank you! While there are a couple of worthwhile game design texts (imo at least) these books look like they’ll actually teach me about design. THANKYOU!!!
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[...] Los 10 libros que todo gamedesigner debería leer salió en el mismo sitio al que hago referencia en el parrafo anterior. No puedo decir que estoy de acuerdo porque no los leí, pero si están pensando en hacer una compra para su empresa/biblioteca a lo mejor conviene echarles un vistazo. LINK. [...]
[...] visiting Rob Hale’s blog entry Ten books game designers should all read I have started and nearly finished to read “Finding flow”. I realised to late that [...]