Characteristics of Games

by George Skaff Elias, Richard Garfield, K. Robert Gutschera, Eric Zimmerman (Foreword by), Peter Whitley (Illustrator)

Overview

Understanding games—whether computer games, card games, board games, or sports—by analyzing certain common traits.

Characteristics of Games offers a new way to understand games: by focusing on certain traits—including number of players, rules, degrees of luck and skill needed, and reward/effort ratio—and using these characteristics as basic points of comparison and analysis. These issues are often discussed by game players and designers but seldom written about in any formal way. This book fills that gap. By emphasizing these player-centric basic concepts, the book provides a framework for game analysis from the viewpoint of a game designer. The book shows what all genres of games—board games, card games, computer games, and sports—have to teach each other. Today's game designers may find solutions to design problems when they look at classic games that have evolved over years of playing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262542692
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	12/08/2020
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	408,511
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

George Skaff Elias is Vice President of Three Donkeys LLC, a game design, development, and consulting company. Richard Garfield, mathematics professor and game designer, is the creator of many card games, including Magic: The Gathering, as well as the board game RoboRally. K. Robert Gutschera is Lead Designer at Secret Identity Studios.

Table of Contents

1 Basics 11
2 Multiplayer Games 37
3 Infrastructure 71
4 Games as Systems 101
5 Indeterminacy 137
6 Player Effort 167
7 Superstructure 203
8 Appendixes 245
Appendix A: Von Neumann Game Theory 245
Appendix B: Combinatorial Game Theory 255
Appendix C: List of Games 271
Bibliography 301
Index 305

What People are Saying About This

Raphael "Raph" Koster

This book is a key step forward in the effort to develop game design from art to craft and thence to science.

Walker M. White

Characteristics of Games is great fun to read, but thorough and rigorous enough to use as a classroom textbook. If you want to understand the social and mathematical dynamics of multiplayer games, this book is a must have.

Jesse Schell

Characteristics of Games is a meaningful contribution to the literature of games. It presents a system and dozens of examples of how to break out and analyze game mechanics. This book is an excellent step towards a fuller understanding of how and why games work.

Endorsement

Characteristics of Games is a meaningful contribution to the literature of games. It presents a system and dozens of examples of how to break out and analyze game mechanics. This book is an excellent step towards a fuller understanding of how and why games work.

—Jesse Schell, Carnegie Mellon University; CEO, Schell Games

From the Publisher

This book is a key step forward in the effort to develop game design from art to craft and thence to science.

—Raphael “Raph” Koster, Vice President of Creative Design, Playdom/Disney Interactive

Characteristics of Games is great fun to read, but thorough and rigorous enough to use as a classroom textbook. If you want to understand the social and mathematical dynamics of multiplayer games, this book is a must have.

—Walker M. White, Director, Game Design Initiative at Cornell, Cornell University

Characteristics of Games is a meaningful contribution to the literature of games. It presents a system and dozens of examples of how to break out and analyze game mechanics. This book is an excellent step towards a fuller understanding of how and why games work.

—Jesse Schell, Carnegie Mellon University; CEO, Schell Games

Editorial Reviews

Many books have been written on the subject of game design over the years, but Characteristics of Games is one of the few that forgoes breadth for depth and takes readers to the next logical step in game design thinking and study.—CHOICE—

From the Publisher

Many books have been written on the subject of game design over the years, but Characteristics of Games is one of the few that forgoes breadth for depth and takes readers to the next logical step in game design thinking and study.

—CHOICE

Reviews

Many books have been written on the subject of game design over the years, but Characteristics of Games is one of the few that forgoes breadth for depth and takes readers to the next logical step in game design thinking and study.

CHOICE