Ask HN: Resources for gameplay design?

5 pointsVivtek4 comments

Does anybody know of articles or methodologies for designing the rules of games? My son has what I think is a pretty good idea for a battle card type game, but I know that playability of rule sets is a pretty complex thing. I think maybe we can design by analogy from things like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon, but it would be even better if somebody had already put some thought into this and published the results.

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Might be a bit advanced or too academic, but The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell is a great resource that really goes into the art and science of designing "fun" experiences.

Thanks - that's more or less exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for!

I can't recommend more "A Theory of Fun" by Raph Koster.

His site [http://www.theoryoffun.com/] includes the slides from a presentation on game grammar [http://www.theoryoffun.com/gdc2005.shtml] that lists boatloads of academic work, which is really what I was looking for - thanks!

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