Product Description

A Theory of Fun for Game Design is not your typical how-to book. It features a novel way of teaching interactive designers how to create and improve their designs to incorporate the highest degree of fun. As the book shows, designing for fun is all about making interactive products like games highly entertaining, engaging, and addictive. The book's unique approach of providing a highly visual storyboard approach combined with a narrative on the art and practice of designing for fun is sure to be a hit with game and interactive designers, At first glance A Theory of Fun for Game Design is a book that will truly inspire and challenge game designers to think in new was; however, its universal message will influence designers from all walks of life. This book captures the real essence of what drives us to seek out products and experiences that are truly fun and entertaining. The author masterfully presents his engaging theory by showing readers how many designs are lacking because they are predictable and not engaging enough. He then explains how great designers use different types of elements in new ways to make designs more fun and compelling. Anyone who is interested in design will enjoy how the book works on two levels--as a quick inspiration guide to game design, or as an informative discussion that details the insightful thinking from a great mind in the game industry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11940 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

thoughtful and inspiring
A concise and persuasive philosophical discourse on games. Koster uses clear and readable prose in combination with cartoons to get his points across in a very accessible way. He has clearly thought a lot on the subject and wants to prove to others (and himself to a degree) that games have value - that they can 'contribute to society', and does so with insight and passion.

What does he say? Well -games are fun, and fun is learning,but gamers would rather win than learn. Games are a medium, any medium can be used to create 'Art' - but only if you try. And by the end of the book, you'll want to go out and design games that will change the world :)

If you've ever thought seriously about games (and I don't just means computer games) and then this book will strike a chord. Both a deconstruction and a call to arms, I loved this book, and am going to try and persuade my friends in the games industry, or want to be in the industry to read it.

Fun for All the Family
This is an extraordinarily accessible book from one of the few game designers who not only thinks deeply about the design process but is able to articulate it in a form that both enlightens and humbles the reader.

The first thing you notice when you pick up A Theory of Fun is that there is a sharp division to it: the left-hand pages are text and the right-hand pages are pictures, with very little overlap. You are going to prefer one of these to the other - I guarantee it. What's more, in reading the book you'll get an inkling of why; it operates at many more levels than its cheerful veneer would suggest.

The basic premise is that games are important. They're important because the brain is a highly efficient machine for recognising patterns, delivering pleasure when you learn new patterns. Games provide a context for recognising patterns where there is no external pressure to do so; this is what people call "fun".

The argument develops that games are also an art form. If people are learning things from playing them, then those who create games in some way determine what is learned. However, although many game designers do have an implicit understanding of what they're designing, few (if any) have an explicit enough understanding to reason about the design process itself. To be able to discuss what is in effect an internalised process, they need a theory of game design; that is what this book aims to deliver.

It actually does reasonably well in this regard. The test of a theory is its ability to be used predictively, and although A Theory of Fun doesn't come up with a bounded set of rules that can be applied to determine whether any given game will be fun, it does have a non-exhaustive set that can be applied to determine if a game isn't fun. Fail even one of these rules, and your game is looking bad.

The scholarship behind the formulation of these rules, by the way, is considerable; it's one of the glories of A Theory of Fun that its results seem to effortlessly derived. I put this down to its being a book by a game-designer; the crafting of its structure is just so elegant. All is there that is needed to be there, yet with imaginative doors that open wider when you push them with thought. Whatever your game design experience, it will appear just right for you; that's the skill of a first class game-designer at work. Knowing this, at times it's breath-taking.

This is a fun book, with a fun message.

Play games: go grok yourself.

More than just fun and theory
Every once in a while a short and simple book comes along that manages to describe a really huge concept that applies to numerous aspects of life. I'm not sure if the author intended to - but when you scrutinize this book I found more applicable thoughts and views than I did while looking through Confucious.

The book covers a little bit of cognitive theory explained in the simplest way. It's all very elegant in it's complete lack of elegance and finess. It's short - and if you read a book once in a while you'll finish it in one or two days. And you'll want to read it again, and buy a copy for everyone of your friends. I ended up buying three of them and giving them away, the only other book I've done that with is Nietzches - Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

It gave me a much sharper understanding of defining the border between core and "dress-up". What is important in a design/application/game - what is the gameplay and what is just fancy graphics.

I can recommend it to anyone with a flair for philosophy and playfulness.

I just gave my last copy away - got to go get another one.