|
Book Title: “A Theory of Fun for Game design”
Author: Raph Koster (www.raphkoster.com )
Publisher: Paraglyph Press
ISBN 10: 1-932111-97-2 ISBN 13: 9781932111972
Companion Site: (www.theoryoffun.com ) My Rating: 8/10 (Must Read!) In “A Theory of Fun for Game Design” Raph Koster, veteran game designer and developer discusses game design issues in very understandable terms, accompanied by funny cartoons. The book is a joy to read and it is sprinkled over with Raph’s humor, anecdotes and delightful insights...
The book, readers will notice, is not about computer game development per se. Game interface design, balancing, production pipelines, genres, etc. aren’t even touched upon. Instead, the book provides us with a deeper look into the whole concept of games as mediums of fun and learning. It would have been appropriate to cut “game design” from the title of the book altogether, were it not for the fact that it was written by a game designer. Raph, in this book, gives us a deep understanding of where the “fun” lies within games, sports and play, thereby enabling us to find new ways to inject that sort of fun into games. He is not handing out fish, he is trying instead to teach us fishing. In the first few chapters, he provides a historical perspective of how games and the concepts taught within them relate to the survival of the individual. He then moves on to extract the specific concepts of games that are translated into fun within our brains during play. Interestingly, there is also a section where hidden between the text and the funny cartoons, you will find a very thoughtful answer to the question of why most women don’t seem to play and indeed enjoy most AAA game titles released nowadays. Seems like all game designers are breaking their heads about that question these days, but few offer as comprehensive an answer as Raph does. This book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in creating board games, especially the ones aimed at young children, computer games, and any other type of fun activity. It is also of interest to developers of computer games, especially pop-games, and not only designers. Programmers, artists and QA people in the industry should be keenly aware of the foundations of fun activities, if they are to be able to make informed judgments on how the consumers will react to their games. The books only shortcoming, besides its somewhat misleading title, is that very little academic material regarding the psychology and physiology of perceived fun is included. Understandably Raph has little working knowledge of physiology and neuro-cognitive sciences, but it would have been great to see a coupling of the latest findings in neuro-sciences and psychology with the general and historical ideas that Raph puts forth in his book; now that would have made for a book that deserves a title like “THE THEORY OF FUN (for Game Design?)”. Despite the abovementioned exclusions, Raph Koster’s book will provide both aspiring and established game designers with some of the intellectual background necessary to analyze their games for fun aspects, and to synthesize fun activities and challenges for their future projects. Be warned, however, that the view that games have emerged out of the necessity to learn survival skills and that fun can even today be discussed in that light, although well-argued by Raph, might put off some of you who are looking for a more esoteric and complex explanation for the phenomenon that games are. After having read the book twice from cover to cover, and despite Raph advocating that games are an art-form with their own ethical and moral dilemmas (or at least, should be!), I get the sense that deep down he is a very practical sort of game designer. His opinion of what constitutes a good game has very little poetry in it (Ironically Raph studied poetry!). Being well-adjusted to the player’s capabilities, presenting a medium to find patterns that have a strong rooting in the history of our evolution, offering a mental challenge, and keeping the mind interested for a long period of time are the main attributes of Raph’s perfect game. This stands in stark contrast with the poetic cravings of someone like Ernest Adams, another big name in the field of game design, who seems to believe that ultimately games have to break free of known patterns and offer free-form emotional satisfaction. It is very educational to try and understand both sides of the argument presented by these two great designers, and contemplate a game that could, quite paradoxically, satisfy both of these theories of fun.
|
Your ideas impressed me a lot! Me an...