The Art of Game Design

As I tease it in my first post, I'll start writing about books I recently read and learned from.

The Art of Game Design is written by Jesse Schell a designer with a great vision and understanding of his work.
If you missed it listen to his "Design Outside the Box" presentation. It gives a good picture of who he is.

But really why would I like to speak about this book ?
Pretty simple, this book helped me a lot. It still does and will obviously help me again.

I even buy the card game sells beside the book which help me to keep in mind the book's lenses.

Let's talk about the lenses. As the book was obviously written to be used, and not only read, Jesse Schell smartly summarize his book's essence in 100 lenses.

The power of these lenses are not only in their subject, shortness or simplicity.
In fact, the greatest power of these lenses are in their form : they are questions.

Not guidelines, not checklists, not creeds, just useful questions to ask yourself, and every answer you'd have will shape your game in the right direction.

Add to this simple and useful feature a clear and humorous writing tone and you will have an easy to read, easy to use and easy to understand book, for any designer.
I willingly said designer and not game designer. Because in fact most of the lenses could be apply to any product or content creation process.

To conclude, the most valuable thing I learned from this book is to ask myself questions when I make games. Or even when I study them.
Questions beginning by what, why, how, are now by far the most useful tools I use when making game, thanks to this book in particular.
This book also help me keeping in mind my player, and believe me (or not) but it's sadly way to easy to forget about him. Don't let your player down, keep him in mind, always !

So if you want to or are already designing games, give this book a try, I assure you will not regret it.