Apr 27, 2019 by [ "James R. Miller" ]
Categories: reviews Tags: game-design book-review

Book Review: A Theory of Fun for Game Design 2ed

I recently finished A Theory of Fun for Game Design, 2nd Edition, by Raph Koster. There is some good-to-great content in this book; however, I felt it was mostly abstract theory with little practical examples. It’s worth the read for budding game designers but I don’t know if it’s worth the price tag; this would definitely be a library borrow for me as opposed to a purchase for your reference bookshelf.

Key Points for Me

1. Games are educational tools;

2. We like to learn with games;

   • If a game’s mechanics are too easy, too hard, increase in difficulty too fast, or too slowly, then we become bored;
   • Some players learn differently than others;
   • What we learn from games is dictated by the current socio-political climate. For example, lots of games about rationing resources during war time, or games about farming when our society was more agricultural.
   • Society itself can get bored with a style of game, like SHMUPs, and won’t have a desire to play them until there is a new unique twist or game-play element brought to the table;

3. Being bored is when we’re done with the game;

4. Humans learn by chunking tasks we think about consciously until the point that it becomes routine;

   • Past chunking and routine can be applied to new tasks, such as substantial guitar skills can translate to the banjo or mandolin;
   • Games that keep us right on the edge of challenging our skill set are fun games.

5. Games should be considered just as much art as other communicative medium;

   • We have yet to encounter a game-medium Shakespeare that is universally appraised. (Personally, I don’t know if I agree with that; how would you classify Shigeru Miyamoto or Satoru Iwata?)

Perhaps it’s my exposure by osmosis to my psychologist wife, or maybe it’s that this book’s first edition came out in 2004 that I was little disappointed in it. I think if I had read this in my early 20s in 2004 my mind would be blown, so that’s high praise for the book. In 2019, I think a lot of these concepts are already out there with many designers and non designers.

Conclusion

Not mad I read it; but, would not recommend it unless $10 or less purchase price.