Challenges for Game Designers (Paperback)

~ (Author), Ian Schreiber (Author)
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Product Description

Welcome to a book written to challenge you, improve your brainstorming abilities, and sharpen your game design skills! Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers is filled with enjoyable, interesting, and challenging exercises to help you become a better video game designer, whether you are a professional or aspire to be. Each chapter covers a different topic important to game designers, and was taken from actual industry experience. After a brief overview of the topic, there are five challenges that each take less than two hours and allow you to apply the material, explore the topic, and expand your knowledge in that area. Each chapter also includes 10 “non-digital shorts” to further hone your skills. None of the challenges in the book require any programming or a computer, but many of the topics feature challenges that can be made into fully functioning games. The book is useful for professional designers, aspiring designers, and instructors who teach game design courses, and the challenges are great for both practice and homework assignments. The book can be worked through chapter by chapter, or you can skip around and do only the challenges that interest you. As with anything else, making great games takes practice and Challenges for Game Designers provides you with a collection of fun, thoughtprovoking, and of course, challenging activities that will help you hone vital skills and become the best game designer you can be.

About the Author

As a 26-year veteran of the video games industry, Brenda Brathwaite is a game designer and Chair of the Interactive Design and Game Development department at the Savannah College of Art & Design. She has worked on 22 internationally known titles including the award-winning Wizardry series of role playing games and the award-winning Jagged Alliance series of strategy role-playing games. Brenda serves on the board of the International Game Developers Association and is a passionate anti-censorship advocate. She is a regular speaker at universities and conferences, and according to a 2007 article in Next Generation magazine written by Ernest Adams, Brathwaite is the longest, continuously serving woman in video game development today. She is the author of Sex in Video Games and Challenges for Game Designers.

Ian Schreiber has been in the industry for 7 years, first as a programmer and then as a game designer. He has worked on 5 published game titles, including Playboy: the Mansion and the Nintendo DS version of Marvel Trading Card Game. He has also developed training/simulation games for two Fortune 500 companies. For the last year, Ian has taught game design and development at Ohio University, and was mentoring college students at several universities for years before that.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 1 edition (August 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158450580X
• ISBN-13: 978-1584505808
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,128 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Stars, January 5, 2009

By	Garen02 - See all my reviews

Finally! A book that talks about HOW to become a good game designer instead of merely addressing WHAT game design is. Most of the game design textbooks I've read taught me a bunch of academic buzz words (ludology, emergent game play, etc.), but they didn't leave much in the way of practical application. Brathwaite and Schreiber cap each chapter with a series of game design challenges that let the reader put their new knowledge to the test with good old pen and paper.

I found these challenges really helpful. In fact, they got me in the right mindset for taking design tests with game companies. After interviewing with one company, I was asked to take their design test. Thanks to Challenges, I was comfortable working under all sorts of real-world constraints, from genre-specific/technological limitations to IP restraints. The company liked my test and invited me to more interviews! So as an aspiring game designer, I extend my highest recommendation for this book to those looking to expand their design portfolio and prepare themselves for breaking into the game industry.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheers for Challenges, January 5, 2009

By	Mitch "The Grad Student" (Savannah, GA) - See all my reviews

Brathwaite and Schreiber's "Challenges" is a great introductory work for those starting to learn about game design, a helpful training tool for the intermediate designer, and a good candidate for a textbook for educators teaching design.

For the beginner, the book is clearly laid and approaches design from the very basics, giving a reader who possesses a zero knowledge base a solid grasp of the core concepts and processes of game design. The first two parts of the book cover individual topics of design chapter by chapter, walking the new designer through different elements of design, from incorporating elements of chance to playtestesting for balance. Even more importantly, the book takes a hands-on approach to design and requests that the reader try out their new-found knowledge by completing "Challenges" - short exercises found at the end of each of these chapters which ask the reader to build a game using a specific core concept. Each of these challenges require that the reader build a non-digital game, so even readers with no programming ability can quickly jump in and try out their new skills. Overall the book is written in a friendly, informative and professional manner, and should be on any beginner designer's must read list.

For the intermediate designer, the book has even more to offer. The afore mentioned Challenges are great tests for thinking about design in new and different ways, with the "Iron Designer" challenges offering an even more complex task. The latter half of the book discusses design from a more theoretical and professional approach, with topics ranging from games as art to working with an IP. The beginner may also find many of these discussions useful and informative, but some of the topics are definitely aimed towards those already in the professional industry.

Finally, the book even manages to cater towards the education and serious market, with topics dedicated to games as a learning, training and socializing tool. Teachers may find the book useful as a textbook because of its concise writing yet exhaustive depth and breadth, and many of the Challenges are well-suited for student assignments exactly as they are written. There is easily enough material for at least a semester's worth of study, and the book's low cost for content makes it more affordable for students and institutions than other volumes on the market.

This is possibly the best intro/intermediate design book I've read to date and can't recommend it highly enough to anyone interested at all in game design.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for any wishing to design games., December 4, 2009

By	A. Harper "student" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I was reading Brenda's recommended reading for people who want to design games, and she mentioned some great books for students interested in game design or classes. I decided to read two books she recommended, but in the end I picked up this book instead of those two simply because it really sounded like it had tactile practices I could actually use. This reeeeeeally helped me with my prototyping class which is unrelated to where they teach and use this book.

As mentioned those wishing to work in teams within the industry - this book REALLY makes sense for those helping teams with "outside the box" thinking. I am still reading it alone though, and find no problems gaining helpful knowledge from the ideas set forth and doing the challenges alone (for us small town folk :P).

It has really been a lot of fun approaching this solo and it's hard to come up with balancing out ideas presented in the book. I think anyone could read it and skim through the game ideas thinking about what might work, but really making the suggested prototypes at least on paper would help readers get the most from this book. I would have paid more for such an excellent, helpful book.

The challenges within the book are definitely present because it's almost 100% likely that you have not tried to come up with prototypes or games for every type of idea mentioned.

If you are going at this alone I encourage you as a fellow reader to try out the strategies and see what you come up with. The team creating this book did an excellent job, the book does exactly what it says and more. If you're brand new to games the first 35 pages or so will get you up to speed on what to start thinking about.... if you have been in game design a while you might skip ahead to the good stuff (i.e. the excellent challenges set forth, but those first pages give the point of view of the book and set up the rest well).