graphics and multimedia

If you're looking for a "how to" book on game design, don't buy Rules of Play. It won't tell you how to write a design doc, or how to reward players with powerups, or how to write puzzles, or how to work with technology. There's plenty of books that cover those aspects already (Richard Rouse, Ernest Adams, etc.)

Instead, Rules of Play is all about fundamental game concepts. What are games, really? What are the different models to look at games? Rules of Play gives you an enormous understanding of the actual mechanics of gameplay that no other book has offered to date.

Other reviewers are upset by the fact that this book uses both digital and board games as examples. A lot of them discredit the authors because they haven't designed any games they've heard about. That's pretty shortsighted, and unappreciative of the valuable high-level concepts presented in this book.

A game played with dice might not have Isomorphic Real-Time X-Treme Bloomed Shadowing Effects, but it does have a pureness that will allow you to look at the game undistracted by its superficial elements.

Is John Carmack more qualified to talk about games? If that's what you think, you're probably a programmer at heart -- not a game designer.

This is not the first book on game design but it is the best. It is comprehensive yet comprehensible. Salen and Zimmerman break game design down in a logical manner and present to the reader step by step. It is not a book about coding electronic games. It is about the design principles of all games, whether they are played with bits, bats, chips or checkers. It is about games as a cultural code.

The book is organized into four sections. The first gives the basic concepts. The three chapters that follow break game design down into three 'primary schemas': Rules, Play and Culture. This analytic approach to games has the virtue of clear organization and logical progression.

The authors have extensive experience in both game design and design education, and above all love games and game cultures.

While it is a nice romp through the games culture of the 1980's, it really has no input on the world of games today. The fundamentals have changed, and this book is showing it's age in a big way. If you are interested in learning more about true fundamentals to game design, check out Chris Crawford's great book on the topic. Money is tight for every student, don't invest in this under whelming hog wash.