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The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses Jesse Schell - 2008

Game Design (design)

The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses

Author(s) : Jesse Schell
Editor : Morgan Kaufmann
Publication date : 09-12-2008
Language : english English

An excellent book about the design of games written by Jesse Schell, a game designer who worked on Disneyland attractions and on the kids MMO Toontown Online, among others. With over 500 book pages, the author details the different aspects of the professional game design process, and explain how a game designer can influence them: game design documents, mechanics, interface, characters, the "client" funding the game, player's emotions, the game designer's artistic motivation... Besides the numerous examples coming from the professional experience of the author, this book also introduces a hundred of "lenses". A "lens" is a kind of "viewing angle" allowing the game designer to focus on a particular aspect of his game. These "lenses" are composed by a series of questions. For example, the "lens of judgement" makes the game designer asks himself: what does my game judge about the players? How does it communicate this judgement? Do players feel the judgement is fair?...
This book was translated into French in 2010 under the title "L'Art du game design: 100 objectifs pour mieux concevoir vos jeux".

 


Keywords : game design, examples, in-depth, jesse schell, disney