"Game Design Workshop" book Review

I have always been saddened by the paucity of any books out there specifically on board game design. While there are books on the ways to design computer games, most of these books understandable talk primarily from a digital design perspective often times masking the core game design principles that are applicable to all games: digital or otherwise.

Game Design Workshop – Designing, Prototyping and Playtesting Games is a rare exception to the rule, purporting to speak from the perspective of “releasing you from the intricacies of electronic game production, so you can develop a working understanding of the essentials of game design.” Teaching the essentials of game design, the book does amazingly well.

Divided into three parts, the book’s first part begins with “Game Design Basics”, covering what the book calls a game’s formal elements that are present in all types of games from computer games to card games. The first part also covers the importance of working with the dramatic elements of a game (character, story line and so on). The first part concludes with a very important chapter on seeing games as dynamic systems with resources and economies, drawing many examples from Pit and the Settlers of Catan.

Part II then takes all of the knowledge gained in the first part to go ahead and actually create a game using the principles learned. Part II starts with a very helpful chapter on the generation of ideas, brainstorming and the like. From there the book goes on to one of its most important chapters: prototyping. To help the reader gain a better understanding on prototyping, the book presents various exercises for you to try out. It then goes on to illustrate the creation of a physical first-person-shooter prototype using paper, pencils and figures.

Part II, continues on the subject of playtesting and emphasizes the importance of it within the context of iterative design. The chapter presents a plethora of helpful advice on how to playtest with others, what to look for, the types of questions to ask and the types of things to look for in your game: an optimal strategy, unbalanced elements, loops holes and so on. The section continues with a chapter on testing your game to the point that it becomes fully functional, internally complete and balanced. From there, the next chapter takes a journey down one of the most fundamental questions of what makes a game fun. The chapter does an excellent job of explaining and emphasizing the importance of improving players’ choices by presenting dilemmas or interesting decisions within the context of making the game more fun.

Part III on “Working as a Game Designer” is a section devoted mainly on the organization, stages of development, and documentation of a computer game project. The part goes on to explaining how the computer game industry works and advice on how to get job as a game designer. While this part would not really interest those on board game design, it is interesting, nevertheless, and can impart some useful advice on how to network and make a pitch on your ideas for a game.

One of the main strengths of this book is that is geared for a reader to actually try out all the principles of the book. It does this by continually presenting exercises for the reader to do. If the reader is diligent and keeps to the exercises, he or she should end up with a physical prototype that theoretically should be well tested, original, fun and internally complete.

A really nice addition to the book is it having little articles littered throughout by famous designers explaining their approach to game design and what there favorite games are. While many of the designers presented are computer game designers, there are board game designers the likes of James Ernest (Cheapass Games), Richard Garfield (Magic), Brian Tinsman (author of The Game Inventor’s Guidebook) and our good old Alan Moon (Ticket to Ride, Elfenland and so on).

I heartily recommend this book. While not explicitly made to design boards games, the book teaches enough essential game principles that can be applied to the creation of board games. The section on prototyping and playtesting is excellent, and anyone owning this book and applying its principles should be one step ahead of the game.

You won’t be disappointed.

--DarkDream