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Rules of Play : Game Design Fundamentals
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Author: Katie Salen, Eric Zimmerman
List Price: $49.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0262240459
Publisher: MIT Press (01 October, 2003)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 11,151
Average Customer Rating: 3.4 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 1 out of 5
Many words, little content
The authors treat you to a pretentious, hollow, lopsided ivory tower view of what games are and then summarize each section by having a guest writer design a game to be played with dimes.This is exactly what's giving acadamic game research a bad name. I can't imagine anyone who would find this gibberish useful.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Teaches the analysis of games
This book shows how to analyze games, rather than design them. As such, it easily covers its bases. It is not light reading, and it is a textbook of sorts, but it is a very fun read. It takes adequate time to define and present abstract concepts and qualities that games have. It looks at games from many different angles. It presents three distict levels (or "schemas") in describing games: as collections of rules, as systems of play, and as cultural systems. I find it refreshing that the authors did not take a "one size fits all" approach. Those who would like to design their own games would find this book very useful. Those who want a tutorial that explains how to design certain types of games would probably be disappointed.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Dodge this bullet!
As a life-long game designer, I've worked on dozens of projects from multi-million dollar blockbusters to academic experimentation & pure research. The current glut of high brow nonsense being passed on as educational literature appalls me. Case in point: The authors here have laughable credentials. Furthermore, anyone with the internet can get this "information" for free. Cashing in on a gullible public has become a ubiquitous pastime in the game literature pyramid scheme, don't fall victim to it's wrath.
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