Games and exercises to help designers understand how people think, how systems work, and how a design process can unfold.
Exercises in Play, Systems, and Design is a collection of hands-on, real-world exercises for designers of all kinds. Games and play can help designers understand how people think, how systems work, and how a design process can unfold. The exercises are sometimes played on a tabletop, and sometimes are physical and social games, but they are all thought-provoking and (of course!) very fun to play. The book is divided into three sections, games that can be played in 30 minutes, 2 hours, and a day or more. They are valuable for anyone who wants to know more about how people think, how systems work, how to create meaningful experiences, and how to redesign the world for the better.
Short, inspirational essays begin each section, where readers learn about productive collaboration, creative problem solving, how to communicate ideas, and analyzing how systems work.
An impassioned look at games and game design that offers the most ambitious framework for understanding them to date. As pop culture, games are as important as film or television--but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance. Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.
