12.12.06
Review of “Game Design: Theory & Practice” by Richard Rouse III
I’m evaluating books on game design as potential texts for a game design course at Union College and also perhaps RPI. The first book I’m looking at is “Game Design: Theory & Practice” 2nd edition by Richard Rouse III.
Overall, I like it. He mixes high level ideas with both analysis of specific games and interviews with game designers, and talks a lot about nuts and bolts. For example, there’s a chapter on the design document, and another on documentation in general. There are also two appendices of example design docs, one for a hypothetical game, the other for The Suffering. He also takes a historical perspective, analyzing Centipede and Tetris along with The Sims and GTA III.
