Learning Video Game Design on the Tabletop

Learn the mechanics that take your game from an idea to a playable product.

Do you aspire to be a game designer but aren’t sure where to begin? Learning Video Game Design on the Tabletop guides you through your initial attempts to design game mechanics. It goes beyond simple description and definition to explore in detail the issues that designers grapple with for every game they create.

Learning to design tabletop games builds a solid foundation for game designers and provides methods that can be applied towards creating paper prototypes of computer-targeted games. Presented in a step-by-step format, this book helps the reader understand how the game design skills that are acquired through creating tabletop games can be used when designing video games. Fully playable games accompany every topic so you can truly understand and experience each component that goes into game creation.

The Second Edition includes:

• Simple, highly focused games that can be played, analyzed, improved, and/or modified in conjunction with a particular topic in the book
• Integrated game design exercises, chapter learning objectives, and in-text sidebars to provide further examples to apply directly to your game creation process

• Essays from professional tabletop and video game designers in which they describe their professional journeys and design philosophies.

Ethan Ham has 11 years experience in the computer game and media industry as a game designer, programmer, and producer. He has helped develop games that have garnered numerous awards including E3 Game Critic "Best Simulation Game," the Academic of Interactive Arts & Sciences "Best Massively Multiplayer Game," and Game Industry News "Online Game of the Year." In addition to his ongoing work developing and writing about games, Ethan is professor of game design and the Interim Dean for the Slane College of Communications & Fine Arts at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.