Introduction

This book is a toolbox of possibilities. It is not a how-to manual. It contains at least four principles (I’m not telling which ones) that insist or imply there is only one true way to begin designing a game, and if it is started in any other way disaster will ensue. They cannot all be right . . . can they?

Well, I’m sure I don’t know, and I’m not going to try to convince you one way or the other either. What I do know is that these ways/principles/philosophies are all coexisting in the current game industry. Different companies, rock-star designers, and schools of thought all use them and swear by them. Maybe there’s a Master’s thesis in there somewhere, but I’m not interested in digging it out and ranking the schools of thought according to some value of success.

I’m a collector, not a competitor. I go through life picking up ideas and adding them to my mental list of “Hey, that’s interesting, I might use it someday.” And when I stumbled into game design as a profession, I discovered every game designer does this same thing. They have a mental toolbox they have collected over the years, which they bring to bear on whatever problem faces them.

And this is one of the reasons it is so hard to teach game design. The tools of the trade are vast and strange. This book is a download of my own mental toolbox with additions from the collections of my professional colleagues. I find it liberating and exciting to have it out in front of me instead of floating around in a jumble in my grey matter. It’s even organized into the four times I find myself reaching for these tools: when I’m trying to innovate, when I’m hacking out the “cruft” in the middle of game creation, when the nearly finished work has to be balanced, and ultimately whenever I have to troubleshoot a specific problem.

How This Book Is Organized

Did I just make a book that needs its own instruction manual? I think I did. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not! It’s certainly very meta. The fact is, this isn’t like any other game design book out there, so maybe you do need a bit of help text up front to get you oriented (see Advance Organizers).

This book is riddled with phrases highlighted in orange type (like the one in the previous sentence) that reference other principles of game design. If they look a bit like web links, it’s because that’s what I wish they were. I wish you could poke them with your finger and have the pages turn to show you that there’s a whole section right over there expanding on this idea. Maybe the digital version will work that way one day.

At any rate, they’re kind of like footnotes, but I’m not a footnote kind of person. I’m a digital kind of person, so when some part of this book skims over, or touches on, or mentions in passing an idea that is explored in more depth somewhere else in this book, you’ll find the principle cross-referenced in orange. Blue type is used to highlight the name of the designer who created or popularized the principle.

So let’s look at the parts of this book. As mentioned earlier, these core principles of game design are organized by four themes: innovation, creation, balancing, and troubleshooting. Each page describes a different fundamental principle that may or may not come up in the process of designing games. If you open this book randomly in the middle, you’ll see this: On one side is a text explanation of a principle, and on the facing page is an image that helps illuminate or illustrate the ideas. Go ahead and try it. I’ll wait.

No, really. I’m not going anywhere. Take a look; then come back here when you’re ready.

• • •

Welcome back! I hope you were intrigued by what you found. You now see how the book is set up, and you’ve also now used it in one of its intended ways.

How to Use This Book

Don’t get too hung up on why a principle is categorized into one section rather than another, though (see Hick’s Law). They can all be used at any point in game development. The categories are just there to help bring order to the chaos and to guide you in the right direction when you’re feeling a little lost.

Here are just a few ways you can use this book:

• Looking for random inspiration. Different people learn better in different ways (see Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences). Opening this book to a random page is a great way to kickstart a stalled brainstorming session.

• Brushing up on the fiddly bits. Some of these principles are convoluted, crazy ideas with lots of parts. Use this book as a reference when you just can’t remember what the Fourth Key to Fun is, for instance.

• Learning something new. This book is the collective unconscious of many people. Even the contributors themselves were eager to read up on the sections they felt they weren’t qualified to write. There’s a lot of great information in here.

• Running diagnostics. When something in a game is just not working out, this book can suggest avenues to explore. Links between principles can help get you to the root of a problem.

• Solving problems. There’s an entire appendix with a list of many ways to approach solving a problem. It’s not a how-to manual for any particular problem, but it does suggest ways to get started.

Keep in mind that there is no way to completely cover any of these complex ideas in one two-page spread. Contributors to this book complained about how few words I allowed them to work with, and some of them blew past the restrictions altogether (see Griefing and House Rules—not as examples, but as explanations), and I had to cut out a lot of great stuff.

So think of each page of this book as an introduction to or quick summary of the topic it covers. There should be enough information, jargon, and name-dropping in each one that rudimentary Google-fu will get you falling down a deep, deep rabbit hole on any of these principles. In fact entire specific books are sometimes recommended in the text. At any rate, don’t think of yourself as an expert on a topic once you’ve read the one-page description here.

And don’t even begin to think that these are the only principles or even the most important ones. There are many we couldn’t fit into this book, which are being catalogued at www.gamedesignprinciples.com, so come join the discussion there, and tell us which of your favorite principles we left out!