The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Third Edition 3rd Edition

Very thorough, felt prepared to design board games with a more full knowledge base.

I own a lot of game design books. This is by far my favorite. Everyone should read it, designers or not.

Game dev or not. You’ll think about the world differently after you read it.

This is an extremely profound book on game design, Jesse explains the process from the inside out, leading you to the core of what a game is, and leading you from the heart of the labyrinth outwards. This may not be the easiest "step-by-step", nor the most comprehensive research-based, but if you're designing a game, this is the book you want. I've actually had dreams about parts of this book, and its content has helped me tremendously in the design process. Honestly, even if I wasn't interested in the game design process, this would be an entertaining book to read to learn about myself, humanity, and/or every one of the myriad things that goes into game design, making it somewhat unique among textbooks as the only one I would ever read for fun. So far.

Socrates, was the master of critical thinking for his time. Socrates questioned all right up until his death; he was sentenced to death for not wavering on his critical stance towards the state of Athens. Sadly, in 469 BCE he was forced to take hemlock but his legacy carried on with his students. Socrates was the teacher of many great men that included Alcibiades, who was a very famous general of ancient Athens. His exploits were notorious, and I recommend any and all to read up on this great man. Albeit, Plato was Socrates most famous student, and Aristotle was Plato's student, and Alexander the Great was Aristotle's students. Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great, are by far three of the most studied men in all western history. The Socratic method is a proven methodology, and the Author of The Art of Game Design has employed it with great effectiveness. All is good within the pages. The format, writing, and flow make this an easy to read book. Well worth the money, I approve this book to all who what to improve their own critical thinking. 4.5 Stars!

This book uses a good quality paper where you can use a highlighter on and it won't bleed through. The layout and typography is nicely done for easy reading. The content of the text in some parts could be edited down a little, I think the author can be a little verbose at times. It is a book I would recommend to any serious game developer, even if you only seriously do it on the side. You will get ideas from it and it will help you think through the myriad of issues a game developer is up against.

This is a great book for anyone involved in designing games of any kind, especially to educate. It was a textbook for my master’s degree if that says anything about how full of great information it is. The book is also available as a deck of cards format containing the same information as the book in a gamified format. You can also download a digital version of this as a free app, for those interested in learning on a budget. I really enjoyed this book (as well as the app version) and found it to be inspiring for game design as well as other creative endeavors!

This is the clearest breakdown of game development and design that I have come across in 21 years of lifeI highly reccomend it for any aspiring game designer, as well as those deeply interested in game development