Rating: 
Summary: THE BEST BOOK ON BOARD GAME DESIGN
Review: (NOTE: This is the final review of the book. I wrote preliminary reviews which have since been cleaned up by Amazon; unfortunately it looks like they left my negative review that was submitted to balance my multiple positive reviews.)The Summary
This is the BEST BOOK ON BOARD GAME DESIGN that I have read and I have read many! The book is well written, it is thorough in its analysis, has references and bibliographies that allow you to explore the authors' research yourself. I had high expectations for this book and that normally leads to being a little disappointed, but this book not only met my high expectations but actually exceeded them! This book isn't for the impatient programmer who just wants to know how to write the next First Person Shooter, or the person who wants to be told some quick methods to come up with new ideas for games. This is for the serious student who wants to really understand game design and what it truly means to design immersive, balanced and compelling game play. I have been reading and researching game design for over 10 years now. I have been writing computer games for over 20 years. Over the last 4 years I have been researching board games, since discovering the European board games that have been doing so well across the pond, I got hooked and realized that these games were the embodiment of great game design. I decided that to become better at designing computer games I should learn what makes games like Settler's of Catan and Carcassonne so compelling. So for the last few years I have been exploring the theory of game design. Since there wasn't much out on board game design specifically, I read newsgroups, web site articles and the plethora of books coming out on computer game design. I also diversified my research and delved into psychology, mathematics, game theory, and anthropology and information architecture. Well all I can say is that if this book, Rules of Play had been available 10 years ago I would saved myself many years of reading! This book brings together all the different strands of game design, going into the theoretical aspects, delving into board game design from the Landlord game (the earliest form of the Monopoly type game) to Reiner Knizia talking about how he designed Lord of the Rings. It explores computer games from Pong to the recent slew of First Person Shooters. It explores psychology, anthropology, cybernetics, mathematics, probability etc... This has the broadest coverage of topics that relate to game design. If you want to know the fundamental principles behind what makes great games, then you need to understand people and why play and games are important. You need to understand how people think and the underpinnings of why reward schedules works. There are a lot of books out there that refer to reward schedules, flow and game balancing but this is the first one that truly explores the subjects and their roots. I found this book to be amazing. I am of the personality, when I start something I want to learn everything I can about the subject, and this book allowed me to be immersed in game design. Here is a list of some of the most interesting parts of this book:
- Reiner Knizia - writing about how he designed the Lord of the Rings Board game
- Richard Garfield (Sibling Rivalry), Frank Lantz (Iron Clad), Kira Snyder (Sneak) and James Ernest (Caribbean Star) - design board games for the book and each of them describe how they went about designing. (Note: James Ernest's game Caribbean Star is available as part of a game collection he released from his company Cheapass games - check out "Chief Herman's Next Big Thing" )
- There are game design exercises that students or teachers can use to learn more about each of the concepts. These exercises are split into 3 categories: game creation, game modification and game analysis.
- Complexity, Emergence, self organization as they refer to games
- Probability and Randomness (luck) in games
- Information Theory - uncertainty, noise and redundancy
- Systems of Information - public and private information
- Cybernetics - Feedback loops and game balancing
- Game Theory - Cake division and the prisoner's dilemma
- Conflict and Cooperation
- Interactivity
- Flow - Entrainment, reward schedules, behavior theory and addiction
- Edward De Bono's L Game
- Narrative play - story arcs etc..
- Simulations - games as simulations
- Metagames - the larger social context of games
- Open Source Games - like Icehouse
- Game modifications - Alterations, Juxtapositions, Reinventions
- Blurring the boundary between "real" and "play" A part of me of wants to keep this book and all these amazing insights that I have read to myself, since then I could have that added advantage. But I know the best way to ratchet up the quality of games is to share information and the game industry as a whole will be improved.
Rating: 
Summary: Dodge this bullet!
Review: As a life-long game designer, I've worked on dozens of projects from multi-million dollar blockbusters to academic experimentation & pure research. The current glut of high brow nonsense being passed on as educational literature appalls me. Case in point: The authors here have laughable credentials. Furthermore, anyone with the internet can get this "information" for free. Cashing in on a gullible public has become a ubiquitous pastime in the game literature pyramid scheme, don't fall victim to it's wrath.
Rating:
Summary: Crup
Review: Don't waste your money. The posutive rating is obviosly from the authots pals.This book is nothing except i wanna write a book
experiment of inexperienced couple.
Rating:
Summary: A great door-stop!
Review: Failing at virtually every level to deliver useful information, this book is a whole lot of dead weight. If you are a student of games, you have many superior options. By the way, the spotlight reviewer "Nikita" is a close friend of the author, so now you know why he's so enthusiastic about it.
Rating:
Summary: A great door-stop!
Review: Failing at virtually every level to deliver useful information, this book is a whole lot of dead weight. If you are a student of games, you have many superior options. By the way, the spotlight reviewer "Nikita" is a close friend of the author, so now you know why he's so enthusiastic about it.
Rating:
Summary: A deep, fundamental treatment of game design
Review: First, let me say that if you want to learn to use a technology like DirectX, OpenGL, C++, or Your Favorite Game Engine to build a computer game, this is absolutely not the book for you. Most of its examples don't even come from computer games, although the authors are fully aware of games like Warcraft and Unreal Tournament.
This is a book about *fundamentals of gameplay*, independent of any particular physical realization. It addresses the deep, underlying elements of designing an engaging, effective game, drawing on a variety of social and technical fields. The first unit focuses on defining the properties of effective games and the different "frames" or viewpoints from which they focus on gameplay. The rest of the book focuses on describing games from these viewpoints in a variety of ways by tying them into concepts used in other fields such as probability and semiotics. While one might expect such a drawing together of disparate elements to result in an wandering mishmash, the authors' continuous focus on the application of game design keeps this from occurring.
As for audience, this book does not require a background in mathematics, computer science, sociology, or any of the other areas it draws from; except for an assumed knowledge of various well-known games, it is self-contained. In fact, those with background in these areas may wish to skip a few sections that cover their basics. Just about anyone can read this book and get a lot out of it, although it is a deep treatment and requires careful thought to get the most out of it. Not a quick pleasure read.
It also evidently had a large budget, because it includes a variety of fitting photographs, commissioned games for the book to use, and a commissioned essay.
In short, if you want to learn how to write a game, given a design, this really isn't the book for you. If you want to learn to design your own games and understand gameplay and game design at a much deeper level, there is no substitute for this book.
Rating:
Summary: Finally! A conceptual framework for game design
Review: If you're looking for a "how to" book on game design, don't buy Rules of Play. It won't tell you how to write a design doc, or how to reward players with powerups, or how to write puzzles, or how to work with technology. There's plenty of books that cover those aspects already (Richard Rouse, Ernest Adams, etc.) Instead, Rules of Play is all about fundamental game concepts. What are games, really? What are the different models to look at games? Rules of Play gives you an enormous understanding of the actual mechanics of gameplay that no other book has offered to date. Other reviewers are upset by the fact that this book uses both digital and board games as examples. A lot of them discredit the authors because they haven't designed any games they've heard about. That's pretty shortsighted, and unappreciative of the valuable high-level concepts presented in this book. A game played with dice might not have Isomorphic Real-Time X-Treme Bloomed Shadowing Effects, but it does have a pureness that will allow you to look at the game undistracted by its superficial elements. Is John Carmack more qualified to talk about games? If that's what you think, you're probably a programmer at heart -- not a game designer.
Rating:
Summary: Finally! A conceptual framework for game design
Review: If you're looking for a "how to" book on game design, don't buy Rules of Play. It won't tell you how to write a design doc, or how to reward players with powerups, or how to write puzzles, or how to work with technology. There's plenty of books that cover those aspects already (Richard Rouse, Ernest Adams, etc.) Instead, Rules of Play is all about fundamental game concepts. What are games, really? What are the different models to look at games? Rules of Play gives you an enormous understanding of the actual mechanics of gameplay that no other book has offered to date. Other reviewers are upset by the fact that this book uses both digital and board games as examples. A lot of them discredit the authors because they haven't designed any games they've heard about. That's pretty shortsighted, and unappreciative of the valuable high-level concepts presented in this book. A game played with dice might not have Isomorphic Real-Time X-Treme Bloomed Shadowing Effects, but it does have a pureness that will allow you to look at the game undistracted by its superficial elements. Is John Carmack more qualified to talk about games? If that's what you think, you're probably a programmer at heart -- not a game designer.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocre at best. Easily forgettable.
Review: Managed to finally get through this wordy behemoth. Now that I have, I'm not sure that it was worth the battle. The historic/cultural analysis is quite one sided, leaving the most controversial topics entirely untouched. The text reads like a "retro-gamers guide to the universe", and fails to offer any meaningful examination of game design topics. Certainly not enough to warrant calling it a "textbook" or "reference book" (as the books description claims). If you are interested in game design, skip this one and look to others like Chris Crawford for intellectual stimulation.
Rating:
Summary: Much More Than Simply Game Design Fundamentals
Review: Read Rules of Play cover to cover and found it not only fascinating and extraordinarily informative, but also compelling, entertaining, and provocative. The book's comprehensive study of games and its understanding of games & play in a broader more philosophical context made it an absolute page-turner for me and forced me to reconsider philosphical and moral topics that I haven't thought about it years. It's more than simply a dry, detached text book; it's a manifesto advocating better design, and along with it, more artfulness, intelligence, and fun!
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