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Game Design Books
Showing 1-50 of 1,893
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses (Paperback)
by (shelved 396 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.38 — 3,500 ratings — published 2008
A Theory Of Fun For Game Design (Paperback)
by (shelved 285 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.90 — 3,539 ratings — published 2004
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (Mit Press)
by (shelved 207 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.99 — 1,032 ratings — published 2003
Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design (Paperback)
by (shelved 162 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.08 — 1,163 ratings — published 2010
Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games (Paperback)
by (shelved 152 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.11 — 520 ratings — published 2008
Game Feel (Morgan Kaufmann Game Design Books)
by (shelved 145 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.90 — 394 ratings — published 2008
Challenges for Game Designers (Paperback)
by (shelved 109 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.99 — 313 ratings — published 2008
Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences (Paperback)
by (shelved 105 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.47 — 550 ratings — published 2013
Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (Paperback)
by (shelved 96 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.79 — 8,415 ratings — published 2010
Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design (Paperback)
by (shelved 87 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.11 — 188 ratings — published 2012
The Design of Everyday Things (Paperback)
by (shelved 85 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.15 — 49,388 ratings — published 1988
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 78 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.20 — 25,695 ratings — published 2017
Characteristics of Games (Hardcover)
by (shelved 73 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.11 — 252 ratings — published 2012
Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Paperback)
by (shelved 68 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.98 — 3,161 ratings — published 1938
The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design (Paperback)
by (shelved 61 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.06 — 648 ratings — published 2011
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Paperback)
by (shelved 52 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.10 — 91,762 ratings — published 1990
An Architectural Approach to Level Design (Paperback)
by (shelved 50 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.29 — 139 ratings — published 2014
The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design (Hardcover)
by (shelved 47 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.30 — 242 ratings — published
Game Programming Patterns (Paperback)
by (shelved 47 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.48 — 1,626 ratings — published 2011
Designing Virtual Worlds (Paperback)
by (shelved 47 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.02 — 177 ratings — published 2003
Fundamentals of Game Design (Paperback)
by (shelved 45 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.89 — 171 ratings — published 2006
Uncertainty in Games (Playful Thinking)
by (shelved 43 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.53 — 374 ratings — published 2013
A Game Design Vocabulary: Exploring the Foundational Principles Behind Good Game Design (Game Design/Usability)
by (shelved 42 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.94 — 137 ratings — published 2013
Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach (Paperback)
by (shelved 41 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.27 — 96 ratings — published
Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques (Paperback)
by (shelved 39 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.99 — 515 ratings — published 2014
100 Principles of Game Design (CD-ROM)
by (shelved 36 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.11 — 44 ratings — published 2012
How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design (Playful Thinking)
by (shelved 35 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.58 — 500 ratings — published 2016
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
by (shelved 35 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.42 — 5,579 ratings — published 1977
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture (Paperback)
by (shelved 35 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.30 — 20,767 ratings — published 2003
Spelunky (Boss Fight Books, #11)
by (shelved 33 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.43 — 1,776 ratings — published 2015
Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms (Paperback)
by (shelved 32 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.47 — 129 ratings — published 2019
The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design (Paperback)
by (shelved 32 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.60 — 344 ratings — published 2006
Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames (Hardcover)
by (shelved 32 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.84 — 365 ratings — published 2007
The Game Narrative Toolbox (Focal Press Game Design Workshops)
by (shelved 31 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.99 — 105 ratings — published 2015
Chris Crawford on Game Design (Paperback)
by (shelved 31 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.75 — 187 ratings — published 2003
The Well-Played Game: A Player's Philosophy (Hardcover)
by (shelved 30 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.03 — 173 ratings — published 1978
Think Like A Game Designer: The Step-by-Step Guide to Unlocking Your Creative Potential (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 29 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.98 — 198 ratings — published 2018
Man, Play and Games (Paperback)
by (shelved 29 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.85 — 572 ratings — published 1958
Educational Game Design Fundamentals: A Journey to Creating Intrinsically Motivating Learning Experiences (Paperback)
by (shelved 28 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.33 — 46 ratings — published
Level Design: Concept, Theory, and Practice (Paperback)
by (shelved 28 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.72 — 54 ratings — published 2009
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter (Hardcover)
by (shelved 28 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.52 — 3,736 ratings — published 2010
Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds (Hardcover)
by (shelved 28 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.88 — 374 ratings — published 2005
The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia (Paperback)
by (shelved 27 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.07 — 623 ratings — published 1978
The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (Mit Press)
by (shelved 26 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.06 — 135 ratings — published 2005
What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (Paperback)
by (shelved 25 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.90 — 1,378 ratings — published 2003
Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Game Development Series)
by (shelved 24 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.64 — 87 ratings — published 2004
Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C# (Paperback)
by (shelved 23 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.28 — 112 ratings — published 2014
Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
by (shelved 23 times as game-design)
avg rating 3.95 — 5,619 ratings — published 2003
Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games (Hardcover)
by (shelved 22 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.17 — 3,858 ratings — published 2020
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Paperback)
by (shelved 22 times as game-design)
avg rating 4.00 — 135,377 ratings — published 1993
“In real life, the value capture process is sometimes deliberately managed by elites to manipulate and control others with game design-like tactics. Gig economy platforms like Uber and Lyft use "badges" and rating systems to manage the decision-making environment of their driver employees. Even outside of work, social media features such as likes, shares, and retweets play the role of points in games. Over time, these simple metrics threaten to distort or take the place of values (say, the wish to meaningfully contribute to discussion or to take pride in the quality of one's work) that might otherwise have inflected our behavior on these platforms.”
― Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics
― Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics
“I think it's fair to say most video games let players experience only eight emotions: anger, panic, dread, surprise, wonder, satisfaction, joy and disappointment. And some games only disappoint.”
― Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design
― Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design
The following shelves are listed as duplicates of this shelf:
gamedesign