The Art of Computer Game Design is a book that was written in 1982 by game design guru Chris Crawford. Crawford worked as a game designer for Atari in the 70s and is the author of Balance of Power, a bestselling game. The orginal book has been out of print for years, but this link will take you to a downloadable .PDF copy of the book. Crawford includes six precepts for computer game design that are still true, twenty years after the original text was written. The precepts include: Go with the grain (work with the strengths of the computing medium); Don’t transplant (taking a board game and converting it to a computer game doesn’t work); Keep it clean (stay close to the theme and avoid distracting details); Store less and process more (what we in computer simulation call dynamic complexity vs. detail complexity).
Suggested Articles:
- Designing Effective Learning Laboratories
- Rules for Revolutionaries
- Forum Classic: Why Prototyping is a Good Idea
- 50 Books For Everyone In the Game Industry
- Game Master: The New Yorker Reports on Will Wright’s Spore
