Challenges for Game Designers

Challenges for Game Designers non-digital exercises for video game designers
Author(s)	Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber
Language	English
Category	Game Design
Publisher	Charles River Media
Publication date	August 21, 2008
Pages	352
ISBN	978-1584505808

Book Description

Welcome to a book written to challenge you, improve your brainstorming abilities, and sharpen your game design skills! Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers is filled with enjoyable, interesting, and challenging exercises to help you become a better video game designer, whether you are a professional or aspire to be. Each chapter covers a different topic important to game designers, and was taken from actual industry experience. After a brief overview of the topic, there are five challenges that each take less than two hours and allow you to apply the material, explore the topic, and expand your knowledge in that area. Each chapter also includes 10 ?non-digital shorts? to further hone your skills. None of the challenges in the book require any programming or a computer, but many of the topics feature challenges that can be made into fully functioning games. The book is useful for professional designers, aspiring designers, and instructors who teach game design courses, and the challenges are great for both practice and homework assignments. The book can be worked through chapter by chapter, or you can skip around and do only the challenges that interest you. As with anything else, making great games takes practice and Challenges for Game Designers provides you with a collection of fun, thoughtprovoking, and of course, challenging activities that will help you hone vital skills and become the best game designer you can be.

About the Author

As a 26-year veteran of the video games industry, Brenda Brathwaite is a game designer and Chair of the Interactive Design and Game Development department at the Savannah College of Art & Design. She has worked on 22 internationally known titles including the award-winning Wizardry series of role playing games and the award-winning Jagged Alliance series of strategy role-playing games. Brenda serves on the board of the International Game Developers Association and is a passionate anti-censorship advocate. She is a regular speaker at universities and conferences, and according to a 2007 article in Next Generation magazine written by Ernest Adams, Brathwaite is the longest, continuously serving woman in video game development today. She is the author of "Sex in Video Games" and "Challenges for Game Designers."

Ian Schreiber has been in the industry for eight years, first as a programmer and then as a game designer. He has worked on five published game titles, including Playboy: the Mansion and the Nintendo DS version of Marvel Trading Card Game. He has also developed training/simulation games for two Fortune 500 companies. Ian has taught game design and development courses at Ohio University, Columbus State Community College, and Savannah College of Art and Design, and has mentored college students at those and several other universities. Ian is co-author of "Challenges for Game Designers."

Buy the Book