Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation (Morgan Kaufmann Game Design Books) (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: long jump, triple jump, guitar hero, Super Mario Brothers, Bionic Commando, Donkey Kong (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

"Feel" is the essence of human-computer interaction. It is the single most important (yet often overlooked) element in games that makes the game art form unique. No other traditional art form like film, literature, music encompasses interactivity, as games do. This book bring "feel" to the forefront and gives it a proper voice.

Product Description

"Game Feel" exposes "feel" as a hidden language in game design that no one has fully articulated yet. The language could be compared to the building blocks of music (time signatures, chord progressions, verse) - no matter the instruments, style or time period - these building blocks come into play. Feel and sensation are similar building blocks where game design is concerned. They create the meta-sensation of involvement with a game.

The understanding of how game designers create feel, and affect feel are only partially understood by most in the field and tends to be overlooked as a method or course of study, yet a game's feel is central to a game's success. This book brings the subject of feel to light by consolidating existing theories into a cohesive book.

The book covers topics like the role of sound, ancillary indicators, the importance of metaphor, how people perceive things, and a brief history of feel in games.

The associated web site contains a playset with ready-made tools to design feel in games, six key components to creating virtual sensation. There's a play palette too, so the desiger can first experience the importance of that component by altering variables and feeling the results. The playset allows the reader to experience each of the sensations described in the book, and then allows them to apply them to their own projects. Creating game feel without having to program, essentially. The final version of the playset will have enough flexibility that the reader will be able to use it as a companion to the exercises in the book, working through each one to create the feel described.




*Demystifies this crucial, fundamental, and unexplored aspect of game design with case studies and fully interactive examples
*Interviews with industry luminaries and in-depth examination of many classic games from a fresh angle
*Website includes a fully playable interactive playset with ready-made tools for game designers

Product Details

• Paperback: 376 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann (October 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0123743281
• ISBN-13: 978-0123743282
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #327,014 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new and interesting perspective on game design, August 20, 2009

By	Jessica Weissman "poet and computer programmer" (Silver Spring, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

As someone who designed interactive educational computer games a decade before the birth of PCs and handhelds, I have spent a lot of time thinking about gaming, game design, and what makes a game playable and fun. My standards for game design books are high - the book has to surprise me and make me see some aspect of games in a new way.

This book hits that mark. Swink analyzes games in terms of how they create sensations in the player - not in terms of haptics, but in terms of how real time control, spatial simulation, and polish combine. This sounds simple and trivial, but is not. Swink is a good enough writer and thinker that he is able to use this framework to examine many classic and new games, and to lay out metrics and offer useful design suggestions all based on this set of concepts.

Under metrics Swink discusses the familiar atoms of gaming (interactivity, rules, etc) and applies game feel to each, deriving usable metrics each time. Then, he discusses a few classic games in detail, bringing a fresh perspective each time.

Finally, he lays out a few games he'd like to make - possibly the most inspiring section of the book.

Oh, and did I mention that there's a website where you can experiment with the concepts? And that Swink is an interesting and clear writer? So if you're interested in game design and know the basics already and don't want war stories or industry advice, pick up this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guide for designing involving games, August 3, 2009

By	Trevor Burnham (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

Steve Swink writes at length in this book about an aspect of game design that's rarely considered in a formal way: How to make a game feel responsive and consistent with a player's expectations. He's particularly concerned with games that play in real-time and give instant feedback, and makes his point with a rich set of examples. For instance, why was Street Fighter II so much more successful than the plethora of other, superficially similar fighting games that came out around the same time? Swink's answer: Because when you press a button in Street Fighter II, you get a response very fast--usually within 100ms, even if your character is in the middle of another move. Any lag beyond 240ms, Swink argues (with scientific data), leads to player frustration.

Swink also talks about "polish," the subtle visual or aural cues that alter a player's expectations. A slight change in the texture filter used on a sphere changes it from solid to squishy in the player's mind, and affects how they'll try to interact with it. The importance of polish to a game can hardly be overstated. It's what separates "Gears of War" from the hordes of other zombie shooters on the market.

Think of this as a more in-depth sequel to the superior Game Design Workshop. It should be on every video game designer's shelf.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening Stuff, July 28, 2009

By	Grant Beaudette (Missoula, MT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

When playing a video game, it's common to talk about how it feels. Stiff, floaty, slippery, etc... The feel of a game has got to be the most crucial, yet hard to define aspect of a game. Game Feel explores this elusive yet essential quality.

The book looks at the feel of a game both in abstract and mathematically definable ways. It surveys areas like controller input, rules, game world context and experience enhancing polish effects (sound design, particles, etc...)

Later chapters focus on examples of popular games that exhibit good game feel (Asteroids, Super Mario Bros., Bionic Commando & Mario 64) and break down the components that make these games feel so good to play.

This book is kind of a dense read, which is pretty much unavoidable given the topic, but the author does a pretty good job keeping things entertaining with a rather humorous writing style. The topics are also well divided, laying out each concept separately.

The book also has a companion website that contains playable examples of the concepts being covered. Unfortunately at the time of this review, only a few of the examples are actually there. Plus they have to be downloaded onto your computer rather than simply loading directly in the browser. It would also be nice if the site linked to all the articles the author mentions in the foot notes so I could avoid typing in a bunch of 40 character URLs.

This book is an enlightening read even if you only desire to play video games rather than design them. I personally liked the parts on virtual perception and how some of these principles of appealing game feel are similar to principles of appeal animation. (Overlap, Squash & Stretch, etc...) It's also nice that the author wraps up with a look at some of the possible future developments of game sensation.

All in all, Game Feel is an eye-opening look at the most important part of video games; the part going on in our heads.