Reddit reviews The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (The MIT Press)
We found 7 Reddit comments about The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (The MIT Press). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I think it's this one:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Game-Design-Reader-Anthology/dp/0262195364
The Game Design Reader has a lot of articles and excerpts from books, all collected together in one volume.
When I was working on my doctoral degree, I took a class called Video Game Analysis. It was fun, but ended up being a load of work.
The book we used was The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. It's good, but very anthropology-dense, if you're into that kind of thing.
Rules of Play and The Game Design Reader by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman are great reads about the craft and art of play. Here they are attempting to establish a critical vocabulary to handle games as pop culture. If you're serious about taking games as an art, they're very interesting reads. The Game Design Reader is my favorite.
Also, heard some great things about Janet Murray
s Hamlet on the Holodeck. This was written around the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as a time when Adventure Games were king. It's interesting to me essentially because this futurist look at video games as entertainment actually doesn't follow the progression in the last 20 years. That is, until recently with Quantic Dream and Telltale games. That said, I've become even more interested in looking at Mechanics as vocabulary (see the other front page thread about Mechanics that tell a story).
Hope these help.
Okay, here are 4 suggestions about theory. There are plenty more, but these are a few of my favourites.
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
Characteristics of Games
Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design
Theory of Fun for Game Design
Good luck and happy reading.
Pretty much the books I was going to mention - the only thing I'd clarify is that Game Feel is not about gameplay design as much as it is about interaction design.
I would only add The Game Design Reader, which is an eclectic collection of essays that, by getting you to think about the design decisions other people made, can probably teach you more about game design than a bunch of basic books but together.
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Reader-Rules-Anthology/dp/0262195364
12-36 months is the standard for a 2-3 million dollar production.