The Game Designer's Workbook: Hands-on Tools, Exercises, Walkthroughs, and Resources for New Game Designers
Hands-on tools, exercises, walkthroughs, and resources for new game designers. All you need is a pencil!

In The Game Designer's Workbook, two experienced game designers, Bobby Lockhart and Eric Lang, walk you through design tips and exercises you can apply immediately to take your next game to the next level. The authors draw on decades of combined experience in game design, helping you ideate, storyboard, create fun and challenging levels, and more.

The book is structured as a set of practical exercises and examples to give budding game designers hands-on experience with the nuts and bolts of designing games. Equipped only with a pencil, you can level-up your skills in critical areas of game design. While you're free to use a computer, a pair of dice, or to team up with a group of friends, The Game Designer's Workbook lets you develop your skills whenever you've got something to write with and 10 minutes of spare time.

The book includes reflection sections that allow you to think deeply about your future game design practice, challenges that prompt you to modify and improve an existing game, break down games into their component parts to better understand their inner workings, and discussions of concepts common to all sorts of games.

You'll also find:

  • A link to a companion website that includes additional resources, like printable resources, extra dot grid pages, papercraft exercises, random number generators, and scaffolded work pages
  • Explanations of cross-disciplinary skills useful for any aspiring game designers
  • Stand-alone chapters you can tackle beginning-to-end or one at a time

The Game Designer's Workbook is an essential toolkit for aspiring and beginning game designers, as well as anyone interested in games and game design.

1147563928
The Game Designer's Workbook: Hands-on Tools, Exercises, Walkthroughs, and Resources for New Game Designers
Hands-on tools, exercises, walkthroughs, and resources for new game designers. All you need is a pencil!

In The Game Designer's Workbook, two experienced game designers, Bobby Lockhart and Eric Lang, walk you through design tips and exercises you can apply immediately to take your next game to the next level. The authors draw on decades of combined experience in game design, helping you ideate, storyboard, create fun and challenging levels, and more.

The book is structured as a set of practical exercises and examples to give budding game designers hands-on experience with the nuts and bolts of designing games. Equipped only with a pencil, you can level-up your skills in critical areas of game design. While you're free to use a computer, a pair of dice, or to team up with a group of friends, The Game Designer's Workbook lets you develop your skills whenever you've got something to write with and 10 minutes of spare time.

The book includes reflection sections that allow you to think deeply about your future game design practice, challenges that prompt you to modify and improve an existing game, break down games into their component parts to better understand their inner workings, and discussions of concepts common to all sorts of games.

You'll also find:

  • A link to a companion website that includes additional resources, like printable resources, extra dot grid pages, papercraft exercises, random number generators, and scaffolded work pages
  • Explanations of cross-disciplinary skills useful for any aspiring game designers
  • Stand-alone chapters you can tackle beginning-to-end or one at a time

The Game Designer's Workbook is an essential toolkit for aspiring and beginning game designers, as well as anyone interested in games and game design.

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The Game Designer's Workbook: Hands-on Tools, Exercises, Walkthroughs, and Resources for New Game Designers

The Game Designer's Workbook: Hands-on Tools, Exercises, Walkthroughs, and Resources for New Game Designers

by Bobby Lockhart, Eric Lang
The Game Designer's Workbook: Hands-on Tools, Exercises, Walkthroughs, and Resources for New Game Designers

The Game Designer's Workbook: Hands-on Tools, Exercises, Walkthroughs, and Resources for New Game Designers

by Bobby Lockhart, Eric Lang

eBook

$15.00 

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Overview

Hands-on tools, exercises, walkthroughs, and resources for new game designers. All you need is a pencil!

In The Game Designer's Workbook, two experienced game designers, Bobby Lockhart and Eric Lang, walk you through design tips and exercises you can apply immediately to take your next game to the next level. The authors draw on decades of combined experience in game design, helping you ideate, storyboard, create fun and challenging levels, and more.

The book is structured as a set of practical exercises and examples to give budding game designers hands-on experience with the nuts and bolts of designing games. Equipped only with a pencil, you can level-up your skills in critical areas of game design. While you're free to use a computer, a pair of dice, or to team up with a group of friends, The Game Designer's Workbook lets you develop your skills whenever you've got something to write with and 10 minutes of spare time.

The book includes reflection sections that allow you to think deeply about your future game design practice, challenges that prompt you to modify and improve an existing game, break down games into their component parts to better understand their inner workings, and discussions of concepts common to all sorts of games.

You'll also find:

  • A link to a companion website that includes additional resources, like printable resources, extra dot grid pages, papercraft exercises, random number generators, and scaffolded work pages
  • Explanations of cross-disciplinary skills useful for any aspiring game designers
  • Stand-alone chapters you can tackle beginning-to-end or one at a time

The Game Designer's Workbook is an essential toolkit for aspiring and beginning game designers, as well as anyone interested in games and game design.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781394273942
Publisher: Wiley
Publication date: 09/30/2025
Sold by: JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format: eBook
Pages: 208
File size: 12 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

BOBBY LOCKHART is a game designer specializing in learning games with more than 10 years’ experience designing games for all audiences, including children and adult professionals undertaking career training.

ERIC LANG is a human-centered designer who makes whimsical, award-winning, educational video games played by millions of kids around the world. He is the Art Director at the Field Day Lab based out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Table of Contents

How to Use This Book xi

Types of Exercises xiii

Additional Resources xiv

Setting the Stage 1

Reflection: Who Is the Game Designer You? 2

What Is .a GDD? 4

Remix: Tic-Tac-Toe (Naughts & Crosses) 8

Level Design: Mazes 11

What a Concept: Accessibility 18

Think Like a Game Designer 22

Cross-Training: Schematic Drawing 24

Breaking It Down: Capturing the Feeling 27

Randomized Game Idea: Pencil-and-Paper Games 29

Abstract Strategy 35

Reflection: A Gameplay Memory 36

Remix: Connect Four 38

What a Concept: Forks 41

Level Design: Dots and Boxes 44

Think Like a Game Designer 46

What Is .MDA? 47

Narrative Design: Abstract Strategy 49

Breaking It Down: Discretizing Time and Space 52

Narrative Design: Theming 55

Randomized Game Idea: Abstract Strategy 58

Story 63

Cross-Training: Storyboarding 64

What a Concept: Story Flow 72

Narrative Design: Roll and Move 74

Randomized Game Idea: Hidden Role 79

Breaking It Down: Anatomy of a Story 82

Sport 85

Reflection: Rules Heavy and Light 86

Level Design: Soccer/Football 88

Remix: Basketball 91

Randomized Game Idea: Sport 93

Breaking It Down: Playground Games 95

Cross-Training: Toy Design 97

Word Games 101

Reflection: Serious Games 102

Remix: Word Scramble 104

Level Design: Crossword Puzzle 108

Randomized Game Idea: Word Game 111

Remix: Hangman 113

Level Design: Word Find 115

What a Concept: Chain Reactions 118

Quantitative 121

Reflection: Player Feedback 122

Cross-Training: Probability 124

What a Concept: Emergence 128

Breaking It Down: Balance 134

What a Concept: Randomness 138

Narrative Design: Variables 140

Level Design: Race Track 142

Remix: Battling Ships 145

What a Concept: Randomness 2 150

Outside the Box 153

Reflection: Player Creativity 154

Cross-Training: Theme Park Design 156

Breaking It Down: Bodies 160

Narrative Design: Micro-RPG 163

Characters 165

Randomized Game Idea: Roll and Move 167

Cross-Training: Pub Trivia 170

Bonus Round 173

Reflection: Sources of Value in Games 174

Cross-Training: Wireframes 175

Breaking It Down: Drawing Games 177

Level Design: Sokoban 180

Reflection: Continuing to Grow 184

Further Reading 185

Appendix A: Random Dice, Cards, Letters 189

Appendix B: Additional Workspaces and Grids 191

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