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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Archived: We distort. We decide.  |  Topic: A Good Start: A Theory of Fun in Game Design Review 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: A Good Start: A Theory of Fun in Game Design Review  (Read 10548 times)
HaemishM
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on: February 28, 2005, 05:13:12 PM


Samwise
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Reply #1 on: February 28, 2005, 05:28:33 PM

Good review.  I too would have loved to see nontrivial/indepth real-world examples, not necessarily of Raph's work, but of something more complex than Tic-Tac-Toe. 

Still a great read.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Xerapis
Contributor
Posts: 1473


Reply #2 on: February 28, 2005, 05:30:56 PM

An excellent review, Haemish.

I too wish that Raph could have explained how his personal endeavors have matched up to the some of the concepts in the book. It would have been far more interesting if he could have told us how he reached some of his conclusions through his own work, both good and bad.

But then, "theory" is in the title for a reason, I'm guessing.

All in all, I found it to be a very interesting book, but would like to see a sequel about how to put theory into enjoyable gaming practice.

And I totally agree about the whole "justification of the gaming industry" section. I know that many of my friends/family do not understand my gaming habits. That's fine. I don't get why they find some of THEIR recreational activities to be so much fun. Different strokes, and all that.

I would definitely recommend the book to any of my friends who like to adventure in the wild wild world of games. Not so sure about the 4.5 stars, but them I'm not nearly as qualified to critique the book.

..I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear x-rays. I want to...smell dark matter...and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me...
Evangolis
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Reply #3 on: February 28, 2005, 07:38:57 PM

I read Theory of Fun a couple of weeks ago, pretty much in one sitting.  It was light, comfortable, accessible, and interesting.  Oh, and relatively cheap.  Worth the read if you are interested in games, a good first book, but I expect more the next time.

I think of it as more of a dialogue, probably with Raph's deceased grandfather, who seems to have questioned Raph's vocation.

I was convinced by his arguement on the responsibility of game designers to be accountable for what they do.  Most things I read don't convince me of anything, they just add to my stock of arguements or rebuttals, so that is a standout feature.

I gave my copy to my dad, to help him understand why I'm interested in making games for a living.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.
Raph
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Title delayed while we "find the fun."


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Reply #4 on: March 05, 2005, 05:57:33 PM

Wow, would you believe I just noticed that this review was here? And it was posted ages ago. Whoops.

I am busy trying to prepare "A Grammar of Gameplay" for GDC this year, and am stalling, so I can't write for very long. :)

I'll get the review linked and excerpted on the book's website. If you want to post parts of it on Amazon, I'd deeply appreciate it.

To answer some of the questions and issues raised:

Quote
I'd love to know how successful he considers some of his past works in relation to the points he makes in this book.

That's a longer discussion than I have time for. FWIW, the original impetus of the "heuristic for fun gameplay" on pages 118-126 was examining the crafting system in EQ2 (not the one it shipped with, but as it was in early beta) compared to combat.

The whole reason for writing the book, as I have mentioned elsewhere, was getting beaten up over SWG. :) Sometimes it seems like the more you chase lofty goals, the more you lose sight of fun--and vice versa. Since I am not about to give up on lofty goals, I decided to go back to basics on the fun part, and try to give myself a deeper understanding of what I was trying to do.

I've come to think that it's a wise thing for a practitioner of anything at all to go back and re-educate themselves from scratch periodically.

The part you don't get to see, btw, is that alongside writing the book I also spent a stack of time designing puzzle games, simple arcade games, and board games. It was a self-imposed bootcamp as well.

Quote
In the beginning of the book, and towards the end, it seems Raph is more interested in justifying his work in games to those outside the industry than in delineating fun.

The book does suffer a little bit from trying to hit too many audiences. A regular flaw of mine, I suspect. ;) In any case, that's there because I had hopes that the book would be read outside of the game industry. As it happens, it's been picked up with some degree of interest by the e-learning crowd and the serious games folks, so that's actually worked out. The people who complain the most about the book tend to be the harder core academics, who wanted more footnotes, and more rigor in general.

Quote
For my own part, my mother has never respected the fact that games are such a huge part of my life; I gave up.

See, now you can just give her the book and say "read this" instead.

Quote
I too would have loved to see nontrivial/indepth real-world examples, not necessarily of Raph's work, but of something more complex than Tic-Tac-Toe.

It is going to take a while to get beyond simple games using the heuristic I laid out. For GDC, I am trying to tackle a few more games.

Quote
It would have been far more interesting if he could have told us how he reached some of his conclusions through his own work, both good and bad.

Well, that part is fairly easy.

Game gets made.
Players bitch.
You wonder why.
You try to figure it out by listening to them.
You happen to also be reading interesting books and talking to interesting people.
You also are working on new stuff.
Something clicks.
The end.

I wish that there were things that jumped out at me from my own work, but that's not really how it goes, or I guess how I think. I tend to see things (designs, ideas, etc) as gestalts, often visually as interlocking meshes actually.

Quote
I found it to be a very interesting book, but would like to see a sequel about how to put theory into enjoyable gaming practice.

Me too. I'm tyring to address that some with the new presentation, but I am not kidding myself that it is at all an easy task.
HRose
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Reply #5 on: March 06, 2005, 05:05:17 PM

Quote
I found it to be a very interesting book, but would like to see a sequel about how to put theory into enjoyable gaming practice.

Me too. I'm tyring to address that some with the new presentation, but I am not kidding myself that it is at all an easy task.
I fear Blizzard forgot to write about it and made the game directly.

-HRose / Abalieno
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HaemishM
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Reply #6 on: March 07, 2005, 07:41:24 AM

HRose, please, SHUT YOUR STUPID WHORE MOUTH, YOU IGNORANT PIGFUCKER.

Sorry, had to get that part of my Monday morning out of the way.

Quote
The people who complain the most about the book tend to be the harder core academics, who wanted more footnotes, and more rigor in general.

Fuck them, if they could do it, they would be. I'm not a big fan of the "academic" approach, which probably makes me a shoddy writer. But Moby Dick wasn't written following an academic blueprint, and I figure that one turned out ok.

Quote
See, now you can just give [your mom] the book and say "read this" instead.

I might do that, though I'm really not sure she'd get it. I stopped caring years ago. The funny part is she is a teacher, and one of the first teachers in this state to start teaching computers, back over 20 years ago. She did so with lots of early PC games. How's that for hypocritical irony?

Is your next GDC presentation going to be made into a book?

Evangolis
Contributor
Posts: 1220


Reply #7 on: March 07, 2005, 08:10:37 AM

I have years of experience with the acadmeic style in a several technical fields, and while I understand its rationale, I don't endorse the style beyond a highly technical audience.  The most important aspect of a book is that it be readable, and the academic style requires a command of the jargon that even a dedicated hobbyist generally lacks.  Rigor must follow readability.  There is just too much information out there for non-specialist literature to be written in an academic style.

I rather hope that academics have widely discovered the Wiki.  Embedded links beat footnotes all hollow.

Mind, I did find Raph's presentation borderline cute, but it worked for me.

"It was a difficult party" - an unexpected word combination from ex-Merry Prankster and author Robert Stone.
MaceVanHoffen
Terracotta Army
Posts: 527


Reply #8 on: March 10, 2005, 10:33:31 AM

Ok, I just finished this book last night.  I wanted to hate it, as I'm not the biggest Raph Koster fan.  However, I came away thinking it was pretty damn good overall, and actually one or two points were very insightful.  I still think "games are patterns" is obvious to the point of absurdity, but his observations about pattern-matching, how we perceive fun, and especially the treatment of games as art all made excellent reading.  Much to my surprise, I found myself agreeing with him on a number of issues.

Consider me a reformed Raph-hater now.  Cartoons be damned, this was quite an excellent book.  I'm curious to read the transcript of his second GDC speech, the one that promised insight into "atomic units" of gameplay, or some such.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2005, 10:35:04 AM by MaceVanHoffen »
SirBruce
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Reply #9 on: March 12, 2005, 12:06:34 PM

You know, I was told this thread wasn't supposed to be about each poster's own thoughts on the book, but about Haemish's review itself.  But I guess I'm the only person held to that standard.

Bruce
HaemishM
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Reply #10 on: March 12, 2005, 02:51:11 PM

Stop fagging up threads.

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