Rules of Play

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. Read Rules of Play – kino-fada.fr I did a lot of skimming here The authors don t begin to understand how video games differ from traditional games or how to talk about them as the remarkably novel creation that they are As a result, they write almost entirely about traditional games and the video games that closely resemble them Most of this book could have been written before video games were ever invented, which shows how little they focus on how they are actually unique If you re interested in video games as sets of limit I did a lot of skimming here The authors don t begin to understand how video games differ from traditional games or how to talk about them as the remarkably novel creation that they are As a result, they write almost entirely about traditional games and the video games that closely resemble them Most of this book could have been written before video games were ever invented, wh...The pretentious forward was the opening number in a scattergun approach to the topic that just felt so shallow compared to discussions you might hear on The Forge or Extra Credits or EnWorld or really anywhere that gaming fanatics gather to discuss theory A dreary dull text that will be of no interest to anyone that would be interested in reading it, written by dreary dull academics that haven t a clue really what they are talking about and know less about game design than the average experienc The pretentious forward was the opening number in a scattergun approach to the topic that just felt so shallow compared to discussions you might hear on The Forge or Extra Credits or EnWorld or really anywhere that gaming ...This dry, yet thorough, book draws upon research and theory in sundry fields such as cybernetics, probability, and systems theory to develop a thorough theory of game design as a field of its own One thing this book does both repeatedly and well is to describe a fundamental game structure and then suggest a modification of this structure that inspires thoughts of entire games based upon that tweak For example, after describing the formal properties of poker rules, they suggest that a new gam This dry, yet thorough, book draws upon research and theory in sundry fields such as cybernetics, probability, and systems theory to develop a thorough theory of game design as a field of its own One thing this book does both repeatedly and well is ...It s clear that the authors are extremely well read The book is jam packed with different conceptual frames in which to place games But it never really comes together into a coherent book It feelslike a brain dump albeit of two huge brains.There were several really strong ideas that I thought could ve been books, or units, to themselves In particular, the idea of games as systems of metacommunication how we signify what is play and what is not strikes me as fascinating and rich Th It s clear that the authors are extremely well read The book is jam packed with ...It basically just says that games are systems are and over Flipping to a random page, here s an example It is clear that games are systems and that complexity and emergence affect meaningful play Basically every sentence is like this, too abstract to mean anything Absolutely horribly written and unpleasant to read The authors are pretentious and have nothing actually to say You WILL get a headache reading this you WON T ever be able to apply any of it.It focuses a huge amount on giving I...An extensive and in depth study on game design The basic format is how games fit into different schema and how to design games by thinking about all the different possible ways to look at games Katie Salen and Aaron Zimmerman use a plethora of games from classic card games to current at the time this was written games to illustrate their points Their are also four games made specifically for t...Was a guinea pig for this book in several grad school classes I turned out pretty OK Good intro to basic game design principles and thinkers You can probably get away with reading chapter summaries, though, if you have any experience with game production, design, or critical thinking in general.I read the first unit and skimmed through the rest of this book The content is actually good, but the text being set in a small sans serif typeface makes it hard to read.Reading this made me realize that I m mostly interested in game design as a hobbyist That being said, I think this is probably the most complete textbook available on the subject and is really ahead of its time...Some chapters were not well structured however, the book gave lots of insights about games Magic circle and lusory attitude were new to me For a game designer, considering different types of rules in games such as constitutive, operational, and implicit rules are critical in designing a...

• English
• 21 June 2017
Katie Salen
• Hardcover
• 688 pages
• 0262240459
• Katie Salen
• Rules of Play