Reddit mentions of Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design

The Art of Game Design - Jesse Schell

very few illistrations (if thats what your into). All theory, it's the go to book for game design


http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965

Level Up - Scott Rogers.

My personal favourite. Easy to read.


http://www.amazon.com/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X

You can find a lot of art and music for free, just need to do some checking into the attribution requirements. My favorite site for this is opengameart.org.
That plus a Unity3D free (unity3d.com) and you should be ready to go.
Make sure to learn the C# way of doing things for the games, since most of the good plugins will be written in C#
I taught myself the programming aspects of it through youtube, google, and the scripting api.
I've only put out one minor game so far, and got some help on the art, but it wasn't too hard.
The hard part comes in when you want to have servers or interact with other APIs, then you are looking at a longer commitment and much more tweeking, since you have more than one debug point.
Start early on the habit of using state machines (http://jessewarden.com/2012/07/finite-state-machines-in-game-development.html). The first game you make will probably be a lot of spaghetti, but making a few really quickly, then starting over will help you understand a lot more about it.
for design i'd recommend Level Up! (http://www.amazon.com/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X) as it is really good at explaining the why of game design as well as the mechanics.
Lastly, don't be afraid of copying something at first, there is always a game like the one you are making. Put something together that you, and your friends, enjoy then try something a bit more novel next time. You won't make the next great thing on your first try.

I'm seeing some misconceptions here about what game design actually is. Game designers are'nt usually responsible for programming the game, all they do is develop the idea and gameplay elements. There's a lot of work involved, culminating in 300+ page game design documents that might not even be accepted. You also need to be good at English, communication, giving presentations, have confidence, and of course, creativity.

I don't deny programming is a good skill to have if you're a game designer, but it's by far the main focus as some people have been saying. Here's a book to get you started - http://www.amazon.com/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317743549&sr=1-2

It's kinda expensive, but it'll be a very useful read for you.

Level Up! by Scott Rogers - a great look at adventure game design.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/047068867X?pc_redir=1410179486&robot_redir=1

Level up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design I see this in B&N every time I go there but i never have money to buy it, I've looked through it and it looks pretty nice.

Game Design by Bob Bates covers a bird's-eye view of general game theory and the process of game development from beginning to end. It's very "readable" and gives you context to help you understand how your development process can help aid your particular design paradigm that you decide upon. If I recall correctly, it also goes over a lot of the different type of design documents that are often used in the industry.

Depending on how much textbook you can stomach, Software Engineering for Game Developers by John Flynt and Omar Salem is an interesting take on the whole game design angle by delving entirely into the source code development. It follows an actual game created by the authors and the entire process used from beginning to end in designing the engine. The game itself was shitty, but the code was immaculate and the process certainly gave me a lot to mull over and cherry pick for my own projects. Be warned, however, this book is as dry as a road trip in the Sahara and twice as long.

Besides these two, I can also definitely recommend Level Up! and The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses as previously recommended elsewhere in this topic.

I don't know enough about the first book on the list to comment on that hahah, sorry! The book "The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses" is supposed to be pretty good according to the reviews on Amazon along with the editorial reviews.

I would also look more into "The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design" up there on the list. I only just checked these books our briefly (except for the first three and the Masters of Doom) so I don't know a lot.

I'm also adding this one to the list: Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design. It looks pretty promising and I've seen it suggested before!

Good luck!

Suprised no-one mentioned this yet (or i just didnt see it) here you go: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/047068867X?pc_redir=1405307632&robot_redir=1 We refer to this as the games bible. It covers almost all aspects of preproduction and provides very good examples. You can probably get the pdf for free somewhere around the net.

Do your own:

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Design-Workshop-Second-Edition/dp/0240809742

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Design-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Challenges-Game-Designers-Brenda-Brathwaite/dp/158450580X/ref=pd_sim_b_2

http://www.amazon.com/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X/ref=pd_sim_b_2

http://www.amazon.com/David-Perry-Game-Design-Brainstorming/dp/1584506687/ref=pd_sim_b_13

I'm currently working on my first game, and got this book and I cannot recommend it enough. It has a full template and example of a GDD and walks you through how to do it, and what you need to consider. Don't worry you don't need to buy it, I just flicked through the preview copy amazon puts online and it's available, obviously a few pages are missing here and there, but it gives you a good idea, it starts at page 68. Give it a quick read, I hope it helps!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Level-Up-Guide-Great-Design/dp/047068867X

If you want to be a good writer, you have to read.

If you want to be a good game designer, you have to play.

But if you are gonna play... then learn to make them too:

Good book on Game Design: Level Up by Scott Rogers

Design your own games easy: GameMaker and I suggest the book The Game Maker's Apprentice or Stencyl or even App Inventor for Android