The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses

So, I'm not a professional game designer whatsoever, actually I'm on the business/finance end of a small company. I've always had a curiosity with game development, however, and had an idea for a game. I asked a close friend of mine to join me in making this idea become a reality but we weren't sure where we should start. While I have a very basic understanding of programming (from my youth) and how things should be structured (again very basic), we knew we didn't want a technical book - we already had a couple software engineers for that. What we really needed was a resource that would help us avoid some of the typical mistakes/pitfalls that novice designers tend to make. What would be even better is to find a book that would give us the tools and perspective from a philosophical vantage as well as explain 'why'.The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses is exactly what we needed.This book is not technical, it doesn't get into the specific details of how a game should be structured or coded. Rather it explains the different facets of the design process and how they fit together, starting with the Designer and the experience the Designer creates. From there it flows into what makes a great game, such as what should the interface include, how about including puzzles, interest curves, transmedia worlds to name just a few.The final few chapters deal with the management and financial pieces of the game development process, which was also very interesting to learn about. I think the parts that I enjoyed most were the ones about the psychology of game playing and what the player feels during gameplay. This is really what gaming is all about, how you feel and what the experience is while you're playing and even after you've completed the game.Overall, this is a very complete book and I would recommend it to everyone who wants to really understand the process of designing games. It was funny, after reading the book, many of the principles explained can not only be applied to game design but to other real world situations and interactions with others.And just to say it, I very rarely give five stars but this book deserves each one.

If you have looked around, asking game designers for a good foundational book, you'll probably get the Book of Lenses as an answer fairly often. I myself have close to no experience designing games, so I went ahead and bought it. In short, I just CAN'T WAIT to start crafting my own experiences. Because that's the whole point of the book: to teach you to create powerful and meaningful experiences. The author goes in depth about all the key elements you must mind in order to make your game design as consistent and enjoyable as you can, while also keeping the feet firmly on the ground with such topics as publishing, funding, pitch meetings and dev team conditions.I particularly liked the metaphor of "lenses", which are a collection of questions aimed at evaluating your design from a particular standpoint. This is vital, as the activity of game design can be a daunting endeavor for a beginner, and this lenses aid in breaking it down to manageable tasks. As a computer scientist myself, I found this "divide-and-conquer" approach familiar, useful and reassuring.Maybe I'm still not experienced enough to detect any serious flaws with the book; but as of right now, I wholeheartedly recommend it to those who have thought of becoming a game designer, but don't know how or where to start. Just be warned, though: the Kindle version is a bit messy when it comes to formatting, as certain paragraphs render out of order, and newlines are missing in certain parts. Still though, this was an an amazing read.

A well-written and engaging book that, while focused on game design, provides insights far beyond the world of game design and is full of useful advice for anyone designing anything.The book guides the reader through the entire design process, starting with discussing the designer's ultimate objective (to create an experience); continuing through understanding the elements that comprise games, addressing the needs of players, exploring the fundamental types of game mechanics, developing game worlds; and concluding with how to deal with clients, how to pitch a game, and how games transform their audiences.Along the way, the author present a series of 100 "lenses" through which designers can focus on specific aspects of their design. Each lens provides a series of questions that help designers stay on track during the course of their design. The author also sells a card set called "A Deck of Lenses" which present these lenses with illustrations [...] The deck of lenses is also available as an smart phone/tablet app [...]As I noted above, many of the concepts in this book can be applied to not only game design, but also provide insights that can be applied to other fields as well. I'm a big fan of Walt Disney Imagineering, and found that many of the design principles in this book are the same principles used by the Imagineers in the design of Disney theme parks. Based on the author's background (Jesse Schell is a former Imagineer), this wasn't too big a surprise, but I still find the parallels worth noting.I highly recommend this book to anyone working in the game industry, as well as anyone interested in design in general. You'll be glad you added this book to your library.