A theory of fun February 28, 2008
Posted by ajsteggell in 2008 Spring, 2nd year students, 3rd year students, Recommended, Teacher calls!.Tags: A theory of fun in game design, concpet art, game design, Opim, Raph Koster
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In one of the posts on his blog, Eivind mentions a book called A Theory of Fun in Game Design by Raph Kloster. I did a google search for it, and found Kloster’s website, which is meant to augment his book.The book covers these topics:
- What fun is
- Why some games are fun and some games are boring
- How different people respond to different kinds of fun
- What makes a game fun or not
- How games fit into the wider human culture
- Whether games can be art
- What degree of social responsibility game makers need to have
- How games can develop
He says that at the heart of the book is the main issue: Why do games matter?
Check it out!
Suggested first reading is the PDF file of a keynote speech Koster gave in 2003, which formed the backbone of his book.
Then check out his other documents that support two talks he gave in 2005:
and
While we may not get the whole content of his talks through these documents, look at how he compresses his text to bring out his main points, and uses simple, rough-and-ready graphics to illustrate his ideas. While he is presenting his ideas on Game Design and not pitching a gaming concept, doing this could help/inspire you in relation to the presentation of your your own projects at the end of this term.
That book is extremely hard to get ahold of. However, it is found in the school’s [url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/hedmark]electronic library[/url]. It’s a great book, extremely easy-to-read and insightful.
A Theory of Fun for Game Design is a great book, although hard to get ahold of. However, it is digitally available through the school’s websites! Check out Ebrary found under databases on http://www.hihm.no