Reddit Reddit reviews Theory of Fun for Game Design

We found 29 Reddit comments about Theory of Fun for Game Design. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Computers & Technology
Books
Computer Science
Human-Computer Interaction
Theory of Fun for Game Design
Now in full color, the 10th anniversary edition of this classic book takes you deep into the influences that underlie modern video games, and examines the elements they share with traditional games such as checkers. At the heart of his exploration, veteran game designer Raph Koster takes a close look at the concept of fun and why it’s the most vital element in any game. Why do some games become boring quickly, while others remain fun for years? How do games serve as fundamental and powerful lea
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29 Reddit comments about Theory of Fun for Game Design:

u/lennyjump · 14 pointsr/gamedev

Designing Visual Worlds by Bartle

Theory of Fun for Game Design by Koster is a classic and still largely valid

u/DiggyDog · 9 pointsr/gamedev

Hey there, I'm a game designer working in AAA and I agree with /u/SuaveZombie that you'll probably be better off with a degree in CS. BUT... don't give up on wanting to be a designer!

 

You should realize that it's not giving up on your dream at all, in fact, it's great advice for how to reach that dream. A designer with an engineering background is going to have a lot more tools at their disposal than one who doesn't.

 

Design is way more than just coming up with a bunch of cool, big ideas. You need to be able to figure out all the details, communicate them clearly to your teammates, and evaluate how well they're working so you can figure out how to make something people will enjoy. In fact, working on a big game often feels like working on a bunch of small games that all connect.

Take your big game idea and start breaking it down into all the pieces that it will need to be complete. For example, GTA has systems for driving and shooting (among many other things). Look at each of those things as its own, smaller game. Even these "small" parts of GTA are actually pretty huge, so try to come up with something as small as possible. Like, super small. Smaller than you think it needs to be. Seriously! You'll eventually be able to make big stuff, but it's not the place to start. Oh, and don't worry if your first game(s) suck. They probably will, and that's fine! The good stuff you make later will be built on the corpses of the small, crappy games you made while you were learning.

 

If you're truly interested in design, you can learn a lot about usability, player psychology, and communication methods without having to shell out $17k for a degree. Same goes for coding (there are tons of free online resources), though a degree will help you get in the door at companies you might be interested in and help provide the structure to keep you going.

 

Here's some books I recommend. Some are specific to games and some aren't, but are relevant for anything where you're designing for someone besides yourself.

 

Universal Principles of Design

The Design of Everyday Things

Rules of Play

The Art of Game Design This and the one below are great books to start with.

A Theory of Fun This is a great one to start with.

Game Feel

• Depending on the type of game you're making, some info on level design would be useful too, but I don't have a specific book to recommend (I've found pieces of many books and articles to be useful). Go play through the developer commentary on Half-Life 2 or Portal for a fun way to get started.

 

Sounds like you're having a tough time, so do your best to keep a positive attitude and keep pushing yourself toward your goals. There's nothing to stop you from learning to make games and starting to make them on your own if that's what you really want to do.

Good luck, work hard!

u/iamktothed · 6 pointsr/Design

An Essential Reading List For Designers

Source: www.tomfaulkner.co.uk

All books have been linked to Amazon for review and possible purchase. Remember to support the authors by purchasing their books. If there are any issues with this listing let me know via comments or pm.

Architecture

u/swirlingdoves · 5 pointsr/Polska

@1. Mysle ze pytanie ktore trzeba zadac sobie najpierw to "czym jest dobry game design". Ile ludzi bedzie gralo w dana gre? Ile pieniedzy gra zarobi? Jaki efekt bedzie miala na graczach? Ogolnie polecam fora czy nawet subreddity typu /r/gamedesign. Sa tez kursy oferowane za darmo online przez powazne uczelnie np MIT. Z ksiazek polecam Theory of Fun i The Art of Game Design

@2 Tak, spojz na Notch'a ;)

@3 Rob male, proste gierki. Polecam "game jams" Nie wiem jakie to popularne w Polsce ale w Internecie jest tego sporo i po krotce chodzi o taki "sprint" (na przyklad 24 godzinny lub jedno-weekendowy) podczas ktorego celem jest zrobienie gdy na podstwie jakiego hasla lub protych ktryteriow. Znajdz innych ludzi i zamiast samotnie, pracuj w grupie powiedzmy trzech osob co by sie wzajemnie motywowac.

u/lazylex · 4 pointsr/MMORPG

These are interesting and insightful reads:

https://www.amazon.com/MMOs-Inside-Out-Massively-multiplayer-Role-playing/dp/1484217233/

https://www.amazon.com/MMOs-Outside-Massively-Multiplayer-Role-Playing-Psychology/dp/1484217802

Might be available cheaper at some other locations -- google Bartle mmo book

Also Raph Koster's more universal video game book:
https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210/

u/adrixshadow · 3 pointsr/gamedesign
u/thegreatcollapse · 3 pointsr/gamedev

The suggestions from /u/random (wow that username!) are both great books and you should also check out Ralph Koster's A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Though not specific to game design, you might also be interested in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

u/Goliathvv · 3 pointsr/DestinyTheGame

From Theory of Fun for Game Design by Ralph Koster:

> Human beings are all about progress. We like life to be easier. We’re lazy that way. We like to find ways to avoid work. We like to find ways to keep from doing something over and over. We dislike tedium, sure, but the fact is that we crave predictability. Our whole life is built on it. Unpredictable things are stuff like drive-by shootings, lightning bolts that fry us, smallpox, food poisoning—unpredictable things can kill us! We tend to avoid them. We instead prefer sensible shoes, pasteurized milk, vaccines, lightning rods, and laws. These things aren’t perfect, but they do significantly reduce the odds of unpredictable things happening to us.
>
> And since we dislike tedium, we’ll allow unpredictability, but only inside the confines of predictable boxes, like games or TV shows. Unpredictability means new patterns to learn, therefore unpredictability is fun. So we like it, for enjoyment (and therefore, for learning). But the stakes are too high for us to want that sort of unpredictability under normal circumstances. That’s what games are for in the first place—to package up the unpredictable and the learning experience into a space and time where there is no risk.
>
> The natural instinct of a game player is to make the game more predictable because then they are more likely to win.
>
> This leads to behaviors like “bottom-feeding,” where a player will intentionally take on weaker opponents under the sensible logic that a bunch of sure wins is a better strategy than gambling it all on an iffy winner-take-all battle. Players running an easy level two hundred times to build up enough lives so that they can cruise through the rest of the game with little risk is the equivalent of stockpiling food for winter: it’s just the smart thing to do.
>
> This is what games are for. They teach us things so that we can minimize risk and know what choices to make. Phrased another way, the destiny of games is to become boring, not to be fun. Those of us who want games to be fun are fighting a losing battle against the human brain because fun is a process and routine is its destination.
>
> So players often intentionally suck the fun out of a game in hopes they can learn something new (in other words, find something fun) once they complete the task. They’ll do it because they perceive it (correctly) as the optimal strategy for getting ahead. They’ll do it because they see others doing it, and it’s outright unnatural for a human being to see another human being succeeding at something and not want to compete.
>
> All of this happens because the human mind is goal driven. We make pious statements like “it’s the journey, not the destination,” but that’s mostly wishful thinking. The rainbow is pretty and all, and we may well enjoy gazing at it, but while you were gazing, lost in a reverie, someone else went and dug up the pot of gold at the end of it.
>
> Rewards are one of the key components of a successful game activity; if there isn’t a quantifiable advantage to doing something, the brain will often discard it out of hand.(...)

u/NoMoreBirds · 3 pointsr/tabletopgamedesign

You should check out Ralph Koster's A Theory of Fun, and Keith Burgun's Clockwork Game Design.

Those were the "eye openers" for me.

u/tblaich · 3 pointsr/truegaming

Finally home and having a chance to reply. I pulled five books off of my shelf that I would recommend, but there are doubtless more that you should read.

Raph Koster's Theory of Fun for Game Design

Janet H. Murray's Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace

Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan's First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game

Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan's Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media

They wrote a Third Person as well, I just haven't gotten the chance to read it yet. You might be able to find PDF copies online somewhere, but if you have the money, you should try to support the writer's by buying. Show them that people are interested in critical discourse about games.

Next week I think I'm going to order a few new texts (after payday), and I'd be happy to let you know what I think once i have them in hand.

u/morrison539 · 3 pointsr/gamedesign

Nice rundown. Here are some other books I would recommend OP check out:

u/enalios · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

If you want to be a game designer, just first accept that you're training for a marathon not a sprint.

Start with small exercises, not a full game just, like, quick sketches of game mechanics or ideas.

Do lots of tutorials, like "how to make a shmup in [whatever game engine]" and then when you finish the tutorial just add one or two things to make it your own, then move on to another tutorial.

After a few of those, start participating in 48 hour game jams.

There's a site I participated in for a bit called 1 Game a Month in which the idea was simply to finish one game a month. Not a masterpiece every month, just something finished every month.

It really is worth it to invest time in learning how to actually finish a project as opposed to always thinking about finishing it.

I recommend reading the following short articles:

The Chemistry of Game Design

Understanding Challenge

And I recommend the following books, not necessarily to read cover to cover but to read until the content doesn't seem to interest you, then just kinda skip around to the interesting bits:

Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Braithwaite

The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell

And finally I recommend reading this book from cover to cover:

A Theory of Fun by Raph Koster

u/biochromatic · 2 pointsr/gamedev

Theory of Fun is a pretty standard book to read to answer your questions. It's full of comics and quite fun to read.

u/Chowderman · 2 pointsr/gamedesign

I agree with others that you should just start trying to make games, even if they're clones of other games to get you started. Stay small. Smaller than you think you can handle even. Don't make your first game your massive 100 hour JRPG epic.

​

A great book is A Theory of Fun, also. Good luck! And don't get discouraged when it gets tough!

u/jseego · 2 pointsr/Parenting

Well, it's true that any well-designed game does that. Here is a wonderful book on that and other topics from the world of game design.

I guess the question is whether it's exploited or not.

And a further question is: should we consider it exploitation if the goal is just to keep the user playing the game for long periods of time? I think the answer to this is yes, but you may not, and that's okay.

It sounds like neither of us are okay letting our kids play unlimited amounts of video games with no supervision, so we're both doing the right thing.

u/SharpSides · 2 pointsr/pcmasterrace

Our very own E-Book HERE has a lot of helpful stuff on getting started!

I'd also recommend the following:

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965/

http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210/

u/dindenver · 2 pointsr/RPGdesign

Thanks for sharing!

These are resources that helped me better understand game design:

This is about the gamificaiton of non-game designs. But it really expounds on what makes it a game as opposed to other activities (play or work for instance):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/video/9-5-theses-on-the-power-and-efficacy-of-gamification/

RPG Design Patterns:
http://rpg-design-patterns.notimetoplay.org/

The Theory of Fun for Game Design book:
https://smile.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210/ref=sr_1_1

u/MyJimmies · 2 pointsr/truegaming

It's been on my mind again, so I'm happy to see it here on Truegaming. But there's this video that might help out a bit or at least be a bit entertaininly-interesting.

It might be awhile until we are at the point where we can have entire schools based around this kind of discussion. But hopefully someday. There's plenty of interesting books outthere that have already been suggested here. There's some books based around game design like Raph Koster's "A Theory of Fun". There're YouTubers like aforementioned MrBTongue and Satchbag that fondly talks about games or themes in games and how it affects them and those around them. Then there's /r/truegaming that talks about these things as well, albeit a bit more fanatically.

But sadly I got nothing to fit exactly your category that you want to see, though I'd love to see it myself. Perhaps a start for finding some stories of interesting user interactions in MMOs can start with Eve Online. Check out The Mittani. Although I haven't read it in a long while I do remember its launch when I still flew with Goonswarm/Goonwaffe and the cool pilots and writers of the site. Some great stories and unintentionally interesting insight into the mindset of players interacting in an MMO space.

u/raydenuni · 2 pointsr/boardgames

> I also like these discussions! This is actually a subject of some interest to me, because people have been complaining about a lack of board game content as true critique rather than just more "consumer oriented" reviews.

If you're interested in the theory of games (not to be confused with game theory, which is an interesting type of math), then look into "ludology".

> Have you played My First Orchard?

I've never heard of it. But it sounds like you make choices and can get better at the game, much like tic-tac-toe, so I would call it a game. Interestingly enough, from a mathematical, complexity tree point of view, tic-tac-toe, checkers, and chess are also essentially equivalent. Some are more complex than others, but at the end of the day there's a branching tree of moves, you take turns moving through this tree, and at the end of some branches, a player wins. We consider tic-tac-toe to be trivial and not worth our time because our brains are able to solve it. But checkers and chess are just as theoretically solvable, we're just not smart enough.

> What about a game where you roll 100d6 and your opponent rolls 100d6.

I guess. I'm a fan of extreme examples proving stuff. It's an easy way to see if your theory holds up or not. I'd argue that's a pretty poor game, but it's not technically any different than any number of games. Take MTG for example, given a specific shuffle of each player's deck, you could say one person has a 100% chance to win. For most shuffles though, it's probably a lot closer to 50%. In those cases, your choices matter.

> Also, as for a game needing "goals," doesn't this eliminate many "sandbox" style games (whether video games or sandboxy narrative games like RPGs)?

It does. Sandbox style games are often considered toys and not games. Sim City has been famously described by Will Wright as a toy and not a game. If you're looking at the dressing instead of the content, a lot of not-games become games. Toys are fine. Toys are good. Nothing wrong with toys. There are a lot of cool toys where you learn a lot of really useful stuff and given self-imposed goals, you can learn stuff about them and reality. But they're not games.

> Also, I'm not sure if I agree that activities that aren't about learning are not fun? Can't something be fun because it's physical (e.g., thrill rides)? Because it's nostalgic?

This is potentially a weakness of the argument and might be enough to prove my radical stance false. But the idea is that all of those things involve learning of some sort. It starts to blur the lines between learning and experiencing new things though for sure.

> Finally, is there nothing to say about the fact that S&L is routinely referred to as a game?

There is. And words are used differently in different contexts, with different people, to mean different things. If we're just speaking colloquially, then yeah, anything on the same shelf at Target can be considered a game. But if we're using these terms to actually mean something so we can have an intellectual, academic discussion about games, it's useful to differentiate between toys and competitions and games. If our terminology can't distinguish between Chess and Lego in some definitive manner, we're going to have trouble coming up with any interesting conclusions. I don't mean to assign any quality to the term game, there are a lot of really great non-games out there. We already differentiate between different types of board games. People will often refer to something as multi-player solitaire. Could we not refer to these as competitions? And of course when speaking colloquially, it doesn't really do to categorize Dominion as a card based competition instead of a card-game.

Raph Koster's blog has a bunch of good content: https://www.raphkoster.com/ But I would start with his book A Theory of Fun. Apparently there are some PDFs here and here, 10 years later. It's a super easy to ready book, but really insightful. I highly recommend it. It looks like maybe the PDFs are a subset of the book. Let me know what you think.

u/TexturelessIdea · 2 pointsr/gamedev

If you want to know how to deal with all the negative comments people give you, the only real answer is to ignore them. If you want to know how to convince people that being a indie dev is a worthwhile pursuit, then you have to release a game that sells really well.

This may sound like very useless advice, but the truth is that getting into indie game development is not a good idea. Most likely you will never finish a game, or you will release a game that nobody cares about and doesn't make you much(if any) money. Some people spend years making a game, and still end up releasing a bad game. The simple truth is that no amount of hard work, dedication, or love of game development is going to guarantee your success.

Most aspiring gamedevs like to talk about Minecraft, Stardew Valley, or Dwarf Fortress, as if the existence of those games guarantees their success. Most people don't realize that for every Notch, there are 1,000 people who make games nobody even knows about. Most likely you, me, and most of the other people here will fail to make a game that earns enough money to live off.

If you can't afford to release a game or two (or 5) without turning a profit, then game development just isn't for you. If my post upsets you, keep in mind that you will hear much worse from loads of people no matter how good your game is. I would never recommend developing indie game to anybody as a career choice, it is very hard work that will most likely earn you less money than working part time at minimum wage. You should think of game development as a fun hobby; because, until you make a big hit, game development isn't a career any more than buying lottery tickets.

If you've made it to the end of my post and you still want to be a game developer, well that's the kind of attitude you're going to need, so you have that going for you. I do also have some practical advice for improving your gamedev skills. When you're talking about your knowledge of programming, you seem hung up on the language itself. Knowing a programming language makes you about as much of a programmer as knowing a human language makes you a writer. I'm not saying this to be mean (you may find that hard to believe at this point); I'm just trying to point out that there are other aspects of programming for you to learn. Some good things to read up on are programming(or design) patterns, algorithm design, and general (language agnostic) programming topics. There are also game design topics that don't relate to the programming aspects. I'll leave a quick list of resources below.

Project Euler

Theory of Fun for Game Design

Game Programming Patterns

Coursera's Software Development Category

MIT Open CourseWare Computer Science Category

u/YouAreSalty · 1 pointr/xboxone

>Feel free to lay out your case for this in great detail so I can tear it apart.

No need. Educate yourself. Start here.

Random internet user, feel free to tear apart Raph Koster book.

>However, Rare communicated and marketed heavily. I took in all that communication and marketing and they convinced me to purchase the game. A large number of people feel that their communication and marketing did not align with what they delivered. I could get a refund, but I believe in the future of the game so I choose not to and that is my choice.

That is not the impression I get at all, that they lied. Rather people were hoping there were more and got disappointed... This game has been well covered in alpha/beta and streamed.

> I could get a refund, but I believe in the future of the game so I choose not to and that is my choice.

That is your choice, but if you are unhappy with it I suggest you do get a refund. Vote with your wallet, because voting with your voice makes a lot of us others tired of hearing the same thing over and over. It is also likely more effective.

> If I have an accurate or inaccurate opinion, it is often that the business did something to contribute to that opinion even if it was inaccurate. So no matter what it is I think, I have in fact earned the ability to express it.

As I said, there is no "earning". Everybody has a right to their opinion. Earning suggest that someone else hasn't.

>Rare is better than this, so something is going on.

The one thing I was disappointed about is that they seemed to have indicated some sort of surprise with the Kraken, and then it turned out to just be a bodyless tentacles. I also wish the combat was a little tighter and less casually, but I think that is their design goal.

u/SebastianSolidwork · 1 pointr/gamedesign

Its hard for me to grasp what you are looking for. I'm even not sure if even you are (in extend of Frasca).

I have worked on a improved differentitation: Ludonarrative Synthesis

Additionally i prefer the differentitation (on the ludo side) into the four interactive forms. Paidi matches to toy.

Simulation is to me anything that tries to be realistic as it can be. Which is mostly boring. An interessting system or narravtion is never realistic.

About boredomness i recommend Raph Kosters Theory of fun.


Most words i used here, are meant in a very specific way. Not in colloquial language.

u/swivelmaster · 1 pointr/gamedesign

https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210

A much faster read, with pictures, but will give you a good framework for thinking about design.

u/pjsdev · 1 pointr/gamedesign

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

  • Chunky theory book and one of my favourites. Also has a companion book of essays

    Characteristics of Games

  • Really nice combination of chapters from various designers (including Richard Garfield of MtG) looking into different aspects of design.

    Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design

  • All about systems and how resources move through them in games and the affect that has.

    Theory of Fun for Game Design

  • Easy to read, nicely illustrated and conveys a powerful fundamental idea for game design.

    Good luck and happy reading.
u/hiyosilver64 · 0 pointsr/truegaming

She might be interested in this:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Video-Games-Pac-Man/dp/159962110X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381262117&sr=8-1&keywords=video+games+are+art

Or even this:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1381262117&sr=8-6&keywords=video+games+are+art

Possibly even this:

http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1449363210/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381262296&sr=1-4&keywords=games+are+fun

I am a 65F gamer - let her know she's missing out if she ignores video games. Not only fun but uses the mind in ways older people tend to use rarely or stop using at times. The challenge of video games keeps the brain firing on all circuits. Puzzles, quests, challenge, etc., all combine to not only entertain but also to teach and to broaden thinking in general :)