Book recommendations

This is my personal recommendation for a reading list. And also a list of books I use for the lecture.


*** Jesse Schell – The Art of Game Design
This is the book I am using a lot for my lecture. Very good summary of the most important design aspects from different points of view (technical aspects, player psychology, all different design things).
*** Celia Hodent – The Gamer’s Brain
This is a fantastic book focusing on explaining so many aspects responsible for a good user experience in games. It shows many great examples from successful games.
*** Scott Rogers – Level Up (2nd Edition)
Also a very good design on game design. I’ve especially enjoyed the bonus chapters with inspirational lists for environments, game mechanics, and different templates as inspirational resource for your games.
** Jeremy Gibson – Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development
This book gives also a very nice introduction on game design techniques, but in a more practical manner. The main part of this book is a unity and C# tutorial.
** Raph Koster – A Theory of Fun
I simple love the style of this book. It has comics and sketches 😉
* Flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Wonderful book (THE book) about the flow experience with neat examples from all different fields.
* Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman – Rules of Play
Very interesting book on game design with a lot of practical examples.
*** Jane McGonigal – Reality is Broken
One of my favourite books. Jane McGonigal gives some inspirations and ideas of how to use games in different contexts. Reads like a novel and avoids theoretical aspects.

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