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Game Feel
Game Feel exposes feel as a hidden language in game design that no one has fully articulated yet. The language could be compared to the building blocks of music (time signatures, chord progressions, verse)—no matter the instruments, style or time period—these building blocks come into play. Feel and sensation are similar building blocks where game design is concerned. They create the meta-sensation of involvement with a game.
The understanding of how game designers create feel, and affect feel are only partially understood by most in the field and tends to be overlooked as a method or course of study, yet a game's feel is central to a game's success. This book brings the subject of feel to light by consolidating existing theories into a cohesive book.
The book covers topics like the role of sound, ancillary indicators, the importance of metaphor, how people perceive things, and a brief history of feel in games.
The associated web site contains a playset with ready-made tools to design feel in games, six key components to creating virtual sensation. There's a play palette too, so the designer can first experience the importance of that component by altering variables and feeling the results. The playset allows the reader to experience each of the sensations described in the book, and then allows them to apply them to their own projects. Creating game feel without having to program, essentially. The final version of the playset will have enough flexibility that the reader will be able to use it as a companion to the exercises in the book, working through each one to create the feel described.
The understanding of how game designers create feel, and affect feel are only partially understood by most in the field and tends to be overlooked as a method or course of study, yet a game's feel is central to a game's success. This book brings the subject of feel to light by consolidating existing theories into a cohesive book.
The book covers topics like the role of sound, ancillary indicators, the importance of metaphor, how people perceive things, and a brief history of feel in games.
The associated web site contains a playset with ready-made tools to design feel in games, six key components to creating virtual sensation. There's a play palette too, so the designer can first experience the importance of that component by altering variables and feeling the results. The playset allows the reader to experience each of the sensations described in the book, and then allows them to apply them to their own projects. Creating game feel without having to program, essentially. The final version of the playset will have enough flexibility that the reader will be able to use it as a companion to the exercises in the book, working through each one to create the feel described.
376 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 14, 2013
Game Feel is an interesting look at the phenomenon of controls in video games having "feel," whether they feel "floaty", "heavy", etc. Swink discusses at length what each of these descriptors means and how they are achieved. By examining these phenomena and illustrating his points with several case studies of popular games, Swink is able to construct metrics for defining game feel and ideas for how game designers can best use it to create their desired user experience. The book is filled with insightful non-digital analogies of how we control objects and utilize proprioception, and how we might relate those experiences to the game world.
Despite very readable prose and colloquial examples, I was tempted to read this as an academic book. That's not how it was intended, so I caution any game theorists approaching the book from that position. If you read this as an academic book, you will find several "holes" in Swink's "argument," particularly his theories about the extension of self that connects the player with their avatar. Keep in mind that this is a book for designers, and as such it is extremely useful: "feel" is certainly an observable phenomenon in games, and Swink's examination is thoughtful and could indeed serve as the basis for more "academic" inquiries into the nature of feel and the extension of the self into the game world.
Despite very readable prose and colloquial examples, I was tempted to read this as an academic book. That's not how it was intended, so I caution any game theorists approaching the book from that position. If you read this as an academic book, you will find several "holes" in Swink's "argument," particularly his theories about the extension of self that connects the player with their avatar. Keep in mind that this is a book for designers, and as such it is extremely useful: "feel" is certainly an observable phenomenon in games, and Swink's examination is thoughtful and could indeed serve as the basis for more "academic" inquiries into the nature of feel and the extension of the self into the game world.
August 23, 2019
Una lectura muy interesante (casi que imprecindible) para los interesados en el diseño de videojuegos. Especialmente, como su propio nombre indica, para los más interesados en trabajar alrededor del concepto del game feel y la manera de lograrlo en sus juegos.
Cuenta con ejemplos muy detallados que ayudan a entender conceptos bastante complejos de una manera sencilla. Sin embargo, el libro tiene (al menos esta edición) varios problemas de maquetación y edición como algunas páginas que están, simplemente, en blanco y se pierde esa porción de información.
Cuenta con ejemplos muy detallados que ayudan a entender conceptos bastante complejos de una manera sencilla. Sin embargo, el libro tiene (al menos esta edición) varios problemas de maquetación y edición como algunas páginas que están, simplemente, en blanco y se pierde esa porción de información.
August 20, 2020
I really don't understand why this book is recommended in so many lists, including Raph Kosters favourites. The book feels like a survey in the form of a master thesis, written by a motivated student who tries to make his first impact. The book lacks coherency, contradicting itself in numerous chapters, depending on what kind of point the author tries to bring across.
The author states that in order to be able to compare games, you have to be able to measure them in the first place (which makes sense). But then he goes on listing barely a handful of "hard" metrics, while the rest is dismissed as "soft" metrics, basically being mostly based on intuition. Now, there is something like a soft constraint in computer science, but those are usually a set of well defined properties which end up in an optimisation problem, rather than just being a rough set of outlines. Furthermore, I don't really need a 350 page book to come to the conclusion, that the feel of something mostly is a "soft" metric. Especially when those soft metrics are mostly common knowledge nowadays, just like the hard metrics. I can't blame the author for that obviously, but the book just didn't really stand the test of time all too well.
The book uses only a handful of examples to back its points, one of them being a work of the author itself (a very questionable decision). Also, in these few examples one can already see how the framework isn't really well thought through, as can be seen by the very different precisions and lengths of the different aspects analysed using the framework. The analysis of rules as a contributor to game feel is often limited to 3 loosely described paragraphs, contrary to a dozen of very precise pages about response. It almost feels as if the author knew the shortcomings of his theory, but tried to cover up for it.
The book is also written in an unnecessarily pretentious way to my taste. The author would often use words which I've never heard of in any literature or media, yet still have perfectly analogous synonyms known to common folk. But again, that's just my taste I guess, I prefer non-fictional books to be written in as much of a concise and easily readable way as possible.
The last chapter is where things get really bad though, up to a point where it almost gets embarrassing. The author writes about his opinion about the future of game feel, but does that in sometimes even objectively factual statements, as proven by the choice of "it will" rather than "I think it could". In other instances he resorts to "likely", which is still an objective statement, but at least it gives room for the possibility of a mistake.
What makes this whole thing comical is that the book is 10 years old by now, so you can literally see how many of the predictions didn't meet the authors expectations. Gesture controls are still all over Nintendos titles, and while the author has a good point about the lowered sensitivity in the mapping, he forgets about his own point earlier on in the book when he describes how people would press buttons for extended periods just because they feel as if it makes a difference, despite the contrary being a fact.
Personally I didn't analyse the feel of gesture controls, but neither did the author it seems, since his assertive statement about those controls getting out of fashion soon doesn't reflect the publics stand towards such controls nowadays. They are enjoyable to a certain degree and so they keep evolving.
The wisest of our society failed at making accurate predictions about our future, shouldn't we be wiser at this point? Take a look at Don Normans approach, stick to things that are timeless instead, and give the reader a bit of speculation (!!!) what this might translate to eventually.
I gave this book 3 stars for the single reason that there are still some gold nuggets in there, some really good ones, which will really make you think differently about games, especially with regards to their feel. On top of that, the first two chapters really give a very good lens on the contributions to game feel. It's the details where the book eventually falls apart, together with its theory.
I wish this book was 100 pages instead, with all the treasures quickly available, without all the pseudo scientific, ungrounded, incoherent explanations on top of it, pretty much wasting my time. Let's just accept that game feel is mostly intuition, where objective comparison and structural analysis can mostly only be done with qualitative user research, something that active game design research is anyways very active about right now, as can be seen by most recent papers.
Therefore, I can't really recommend this book. A revised shorter version though could deserve its place as a must read for every young aspiring game designer.
The author states that in order to be able to compare games, you have to be able to measure them in the first place (which makes sense). But then he goes on listing barely a handful of "hard" metrics, while the rest is dismissed as "soft" metrics, basically being mostly based on intuition. Now, there is something like a soft constraint in computer science, but those are usually a set of well defined properties which end up in an optimisation problem, rather than just being a rough set of outlines. Furthermore, I don't really need a 350 page book to come to the conclusion, that the feel of something mostly is a "soft" metric. Especially when those soft metrics are mostly common knowledge nowadays, just like the hard metrics. I can't blame the author for that obviously, but the book just didn't really stand the test of time all too well.
The book uses only a handful of examples to back its points, one of them being a work of the author itself (a very questionable decision). Also, in these few examples one can already see how the framework isn't really well thought through, as can be seen by the very different precisions and lengths of the different aspects analysed using the framework. The analysis of rules as a contributor to game feel is often limited to 3 loosely described paragraphs, contrary to a dozen of very precise pages about response. It almost feels as if the author knew the shortcomings of his theory, but tried to cover up for it.
The book is also written in an unnecessarily pretentious way to my taste. The author would often use words which I've never heard of in any literature or media, yet still have perfectly analogous synonyms known to common folk. But again, that's just my taste I guess, I prefer non-fictional books to be written in as much of a concise and easily readable way as possible.
The last chapter is where things get really bad though, up to a point where it almost gets embarrassing. The author writes about his opinion about the future of game feel, but does that in sometimes even objectively factual statements, as proven by the choice of "it will" rather than "I think it could". In other instances he resorts to "likely", which is still an objective statement, but at least it gives room for the possibility of a mistake.
What makes this whole thing comical is that the book is 10 years old by now, so you can literally see how many of the predictions didn't meet the authors expectations. Gesture controls are still all over Nintendos titles, and while the author has a good point about the lowered sensitivity in the mapping, he forgets about his own point earlier on in the book when he describes how people would press buttons for extended periods just because they feel as if it makes a difference, despite the contrary being a fact.
Personally I didn't analyse the feel of gesture controls, but neither did the author it seems, since his assertive statement about those controls getting out of fashion soon doesn't reflect the publics stand towards such controls nowadays. They are enjoyable to a certain degree and so they keep evolving.
The wisest of our society failed at making accurate predictions about our future, shouldn't we be wiser at this point? Take a look at Don Normans approach, stick to things that are timeless instead, and give the reader a bit of speculation (!!!) what this might translate to eventually.
I gave this book 3 stars for the single reason that there are still some gold nuggets in there, some really good ones, which will really make you think differently about games, especially with regards to their feel. On top of that, the first two chapters really give a very good lens on the contributions to game feel. It's the details where the book eventually falls apart, together with its theory.
I wish this book was 100 pages instead, with all the treasures quickly available, without all the pseudo scientific, ungrounded, incoherent explanations on top of it, pretty much wasting my time. Let's just accept that game feel is mostly intuition, where objective comparison and structural analysis can mostly only be done with qualitative user research, something that active game design research is anyways very active about right now, as can be seen by most recent papers.
Therefore, I can't really recommend this book. A revised shorter version though could deserve its place as a must read for every young aspiring game designer.
December 1, 2015
Game Feel explains very important things, it's been a very useful read. However, it would have been even better if it had half the amount of pages. The author repeats itself over and over again leaving you with a constant feeling of "OK, OK, I GET IT". - Besides that, I recommend this book to whoever wants to improve the pleasure, feedback and control of his games. Swink details a series of principles for game feel that work as wonderful metrics for any design.
February 6, 2019
The book was good it described one of important element in game designing .
Sometimes while reading i felt board because of the same thing repeating and so much of unnecessary stuffs and i either felt confused or difficult to understand because the vocabulary was difficult it was more of a research vocabulary not common for any readers.
But overall was good and had good points.
Sometimes while reading i felt board because of the same thing repeating and so much of unnecessary stuffs and i either felt confused or difficult to understand because the vocabulary was difficult it was more of a research vocabulary not common for any readers.
But overall was good and had good points.
December 15, 2015
1) "In each [game], a device overwrites one of my senses. The screen becomes vision, speakers hearing and rumble motors the sense of touch. The feedback from these devices enables me to experience things in a game as if they were objects in my immediate physical reality. I have the sense of moving around a physical space, touching and interacting with objects. The screen, speakers and controller have become an extension of my senses into the game world. The game world becomes real because the senses are directly overwritten by feedback from the game. By hooking into the various senses, a screen, a speaker or a joystick can make the virtual feel real.
When game designers create camera behavior, implement sound effects or trigger rumble motors, they're not defining what players see, hear and feel. Rather, they are defining how players will be able to see, feel and hear in the game. The task is to overwrite real senses with virtual ones. In defining game feel, we must acknowledge this fact and embrace it. To experience game feel is to see through different eyes, hear through different ears and touch with a different body."
2) "How does this concept of avatar as perceptual substitute, rather than extending tool, relate to proxied embodiment? Because a game world represents its own reality external to its avatar's bodily space, it seems much more like a substitution than an extension. The same might be said for identity. We said that objects outside ourselves---and objects in a game world---can become extensions of identity. Vessels for identity might be more accurate. The view of tool as extension of body defines the 'self' is in terms of perception. The percceptual self is the immediate surrounding environment and your ability to interact with it, your potential for action. To say 'he hit me!' instead of 'he hit my car' or 'his car hit my car' is an artifact of the way we perceive the immediate environment around us and the fact that an inanimate object can become a part of the perceptual self, part of the perceptual field. You literally perceive the world through the car as you actively conrol it. Again, though, the way we perceive game feel seems to be much more of a substitution than an extension. I perceive the world of Hyrule as Link, via his virtual body space. My identity intermingles with Link's as I take over and make my own his skills and abilities, his bodily space."
3) "Context, then, is the unique physical reality of the game world---the simulated space---including the way that objects interact and the layout of space. Like the abilities and actions of the avatar, it is designed. The game designer creates a game space that has its own unique physics, extents and constraints. The designer simultaneously creates the content that fills that world and defines its spatial relationships.
Almost every game has a contextual aspect of some kind, be it tracks in Gran Turismo or tracks in Guitar Hero. Tracks, puzzles, stages, levels, worlds: most games have some kind of designed context against the mechanics' functions. In most cases, this is called level design. The objective is to find the most interesting pieces of the mechanic and emphasize them by trying to provide the most interesting interactions possible with the mechanics."
4) "In Super Mario 64, if you examine these relationships individually from a design perspective, they seem to make no sense. Like squash and stretch in animation, 'realism' is ignored in favor of player perception. But Mario 64 nevertheless manages to feel powerfully tactile and cohesive. How? The secret is this: everything---the effects, the relationships, the control---is tuned based on its impact on the player's perception. From tiny, subtle clues, the player infers broad generalizations about the physics of this world. When these conceptions are ultimately confirmed by additional interactions, the world begins to seem 'real.' The polish is exactly what it needs to be, selling a robust, nuanced sense of physical interaction with the smallest possible clues. The size, spacing and nature of objects in Mario's world are almost perfectly balanced against his motion. In fact, nearly everything about Super Mario 64 is in harmony with a single, cohesive vision of a unique physical reality. The world is fantastic, but it's self-consistent, and stands up to scrutiny, even when perceived actively."
5) "After exploring what game feel is and how to measure it, and stepping through a number of examples using our taxonomy of game feel---input, response, context, polish, metaphor and rules---it's time to set forth some general principles for creating games with good game feel. They are:
- Predictable results---When players take action, they get the response they expect.
- Instantaneous response---The player feels the response to their input is immediate.
- Easy but deep---The game takes minutes to learn but a lifetime to master.
- Novelty---Though the result of an input is predictable, there is enough subtlety and expressiveness to keep the controls feeling fresh and interesting through hours and hours of play.
- Appealing response---The sensation of control is aesthetically appealing and compelling, separate from context.
- Organic motion---Controlling the avatar creates appealing arcs of motion.
- Harmony---Each element of a game's feel supports a single, cohesive perception of a unique physical reality for the player."
When game designers create camera behavior, implement sound effects or trigger rumble motors, they're not defining what players see, hear and feel. Rather, they are defining how players will be able to see, feel and hear in the game. The task is to overwrite real senses with virtual ones. In defining game feel, we must acknowledge this fact and embrace it. To experience game feel is to see through different eyes, hear through different ears and touch with a different body."
2) "How does this concept of avatar as perceptual substitute, rather than extending tool, relate to proxied embodiment? Because a game world represents its own reality external to its avatar's bodily space, it seems much more like a substitution than an extension. The same might be said for identity. We said that objects outside ourselves---and objects in a game world---can become extensions of identity. Vessels for identity might be more accurate. The view of tool as extension of body defines the 'self' is in terms of perception. The percceptual self is the immediate surrounding environment and your ability to interact with it, your potential for action. To say 'he hit me!' instead of 'he hit my car' or 'his car hit my car' is an artifact of the way we perceive the immediate environment around us and the fact that an inanimate object can become a part of the perceptual self, part of the perceptual field. You literally perceive the world through the car as you actively conrol it. Again, though, the way we perceive game feel seems to be much more of a substitution than an extension. I perceive the world of Hyrule as Link, via his virtual body space. My identity intermingles with Link's as I take over and make my own his skills and abilities, his bodily space."
3) "Context, then, is the unique physical reality of the game world---the simulated space---including the way that objects interact and the layout of space. Like the abilities and actions of the avatar, it is designed. The game designer creates a game space that has its own unique physics, extents and constraints. The designer simultaneously creates the content that fills that world and defines its spatial relationships.
Almost every game has a contextual aspect of some kind, be it tracks in Gran Turismo or tracks in Guitar Hero. Tracks, puzzles, stages, levels, worlds: most games have some kind of designed context against the mechanics' functions. In most cases, this is called level design. The objective is to find the most interesting pieces of the mechanic and emphasize them by trying to provide the most interesting interactions possible with the mechanics."
4) "In Super Mario 64, if you examine these relationships individually from a design perspective, they seem to make no sense. Like squash and stretch in animation, 'realism' is ignored in favor of player perception. But Mario 64 nevertheless manages to feel powerfully tactile and cohesive. How? The secret is this: everything---the effects, the relationships, the control---is tuned based on its impact on the player's perception. From tiny, subtle clues, the player infers broad generalizations about the physics of this world. When these conceptions are ultimately confirmed by additional interactions, the world begins to seem 'real.' The polish is exactly what it needs to be, selling a robust, nuanced sense of physical interaction with the smallest possible clues. The size, spacing and nature of objects in Mario's world are almost perfectly balanced against his motion. In fact, nearly everything about Super Mario 64 is in harmony with a single, cohesive vision of a unique physical reality. The world is fantastic, but it's self-consistent, and stands up to scrutiny, even when perceived actively."
5) "After exploring what game feel is and how to measure it, and stepping through a number of examples using our taxonomy of game feel---input, response, context, polish, metaphor and rules---it's time to set forth some general principles for creating games with good game feel. They are:
- Predictable results---When players take action, they get the response they expect.
- Instantaneous response---The player feels the response to their input is immediate.
- Easy but deep---The game takes minutes to learn but a lifetime to master.
- Novelty---Though the result of an input is predictable, there is enough subtlety and expressiveness to keep the controls feeling fresh and interesting through hours and hours of play.
- Appealing response---The sensation of control is aesthetically appealing and compelling, separate from context.
- Organic motion---Controlling the avatar creates appealing arcs of motion.
- Harmony---Each element of a game's feel supports a single, cohesive perception of a unique physical reality for the player."
August 27, 2020
Pretty good analysis of games and theories with practical examples of different aspects of game feel. After reading the book I feel I understand game feel better but I honestly expected much more value from the book. Nevertheless it was good and worth checking out
March 20, 2022
El libro de cómo se juega con nuestro cerebro. Es maravilloso y si te gustan los videojuegos, de lectura obligatoria.
August 11, 2011
A deep analysis of what makes the sensation of virtual tactility feel good laced with a manifesto for making future games deeper and more satisfying using high level rules. Great read
July 10, 2015
Yes
This is a book on a particular aspect of game design that people don't really talk about much, but it is really worth your time to read.
This is a book on a particular aspect of game design that people don't really talk about much, but it is really worth your time to read.
November 15, 2023
Another frustrating game design book. There is a 5/5 book in there somewhere, brought down by its own faults.
On the positive side, the discussion of Game Feel is an important topic, and the work brings up some very good points. Also the points come with playable examples which are very helpful. Alot of game design theory books focus too much on dividual elements and not on the glue that keeps everything together. So amazing on this book for even thematizing the topic the way it does.
From time to time the author casually drops concepts and thoughts that are thought provoking and useful.
On the other hand, this book should have been at least half its current size! I constantly zoned out because entire pages were very low on information. Just to give you an example, the author might spend 150 words listing a bunch of things, then say "well actually none of the above are relevant, what is important is..." then why did I read that? You will constantly see 7 examples where 1 would suffice. In game feel terms the aesthetic of reading this book feels like the 200th random encounter on a jrpg with no challenge and repetition of the same strategies.
I really, really dislike reading works like these, because they have some genuinely good points, which are distributed at random throughout the sea of bloated paragraphs. To get the treasure, you gotta power through reading through the whole thing.
So I will stick with my JRPG analogy. This is like a game with awesome story points, ruined by terrible pacing. I wished game design authors realized that reading a book is like playing a game. You need to design for reader experience and challenge them.
On the positive side, the discussion of Game Feel is an important topic, and the work brings up some very good points. Also the points come with playable examples which are very helpful. Alot of game design theory books focus too much on dividual elements and not on the glue that keeps everything together. So amazing on this book for even thematizing the topic the way it does.
From time to time the author casually drops concepts and thoughts that are thought provoking and useful.
On the other hand, this book should have been at least half its current size! I constantly zoned out because entire pages were very low on information. Just to give you an example, the author might spend 150 words listing a bunch of things, then say "well actually none of the above are relevant, what is important is..." then why did I read that? You will constantly see 7 examples where 1 would suffice. In game feel terms the aesthetic of reading this book feels like the 200th random encounter on a jrpg with no challenge and repetition of the same strategies.
I really, really dislike reading works like these, because they have some genuinely good points, which are distributed at random throughout the sea of bloated paragraphs. To get the treasure, you gotta power through reading through the whole thing.
So I will stick with my JRPG analogy. This is like a game with awesome story points, ruined by terrible pacing. I wished game design authors realized that reading a book is like playing a game. You need to design for reader experience and challenge them.
April 2, 2021
Interesting book providing a unifying model to describe and evaluate how satisfactory the experience of a game feels.
A useful - though fairly dated - reference for seasoned designers and a good intro to game design for beginners. This book succeeds at presenting some secrets of the trade, giving pointers about where to look for value when designing an interactive experience.
Disclaimer: It is WAY too verbose, the author repeats itself many times. My advice for anyone looking for a quick route through this book would be to read chapters 1, 2, 3, 17, then read the summaries of remaining chapters and dive in if something grabs your attention.
A useful - though fairly dated - reference for seasoned designers and a good intro to game design for beginners. This book succeeds at presenting some secrets of the trade, giving pointers about where to look for value when designing an interactive experience.
Disclaimer: It is WAY too verbose, the author repeats itself many times. My advice for anyone looking for a quick route through this book would be to read chapters 1, 2, 3, 17, then read the summaries of remaining chapters and dive in if something grabs your attention.
January 31, 2019
This book shares some essential concepts about game design and the many diagrams and pictures made it a pleasurable read.
Unfortunately, there are some severe quality issues:
Firstly my hard copy of the book has two blank pages that were not supposed to be empty.
Secondly the other introduces the book as half-theory, half-practical - telling you to play with the practical examples when prompted by the book because that's how you'll learn the most. However, 90% of these examples are no longer working, rendering the practical side of the book impotent.
Unfortunately, there are some severe quality issues:
Firstly my hard copy of the book has two blank pages that were not supposed to be empty.
Secondly the other introduces the book as half-theory, half-practical - telling you to play with the practical examples when prompted by the book because that's how you'll learn the most. However, 90% of these examples are no longer working, rendering the practical side of the book impotent.
June 28, 2020
Deconstructs the elements that form the "feel" of video games with a sensible and structured approach.
In general this is a must-read book for aspiring games designers, but while there are numerous moments of genius, there are quite a few sections that are drawn out, repetitive and offer no real value for the reader.
Unfortunately there are also some sections that reference online examples that don't actually exist, turning what could have been a masterpiece into a useful but turgid read.
In general this is a must-read book for aspiring games designers, but while there are numerous moments of genius, there are quite a few sections that are drawn out, repetitive and offer no real value for the reader.
Unfortunately there are also some sections that reference online examples that don't actually exist, turning what could have been a masterpiece into a useful but turgid read.
January 16, 2019
There is nothing eye opening or something you as a gamer didn't know previously. Everyone knows about it but noone talks about it, as the author himself said. And that is why this book is good, it breaks down what makes a game feel, and although you know most of that, it just makes you to think more of those aspects of games.
August 1, 2017
Really good incite into what makes a game feel good. Lots to think about in my own projects. Will probably reread this at a later date. If you are a game designer or in the industry at all its worth a read.
July 25, 2018
I didn't end up reading the entire book. I was more interested in looking at how game design can change the motivation of the player through out a game. There were some great details here that I could see myself using in a classroom setting with students!
September 9, 2019
A five star pamphlet that makes one good point, and that padded its way up to textbook length through sheer repetition.
March 8, 2020
Wasn't quite what I was looking for (focuses on a specific kind of game experience) but the foundational theory in the first 140 pages is very helpful!
March 22, 2021
Good guide to game feel, it feels a bit outdated to read in 2021
October 16, 2023
As author would say - book is very soft
March 22, 2021
It helped me find words to use when describing design. I did not finish the book since I was busy.
May 2, 2013
This book covers a topic that no other game design book I've read covers, and this is both to its detriment and benefit.
Pros: covers game feel from the input device up through to the metaphor and rules of the game.
Cons: there's a lot of tedium in this sort of treatment. Describing input devices, dead zones, and the like, and analyzing multiple games from these angles became a bit redundant.
I think the book could be shorter: the first and last sections were interesting to read while the metric sections were inordinately long.
Pros: covers game feel from the input device up through to the metaphor and rules of the game.
Cons: there's a lot of tedium in this sort of treatment. Describing input devices, dead zones, and the like, and analyzing multiple games from these angles became a bit redundant.
I think the book could be shorter: the first and last sections were interesting to read while the metric sections were inordinately long.
Currently reading
October 26, 2010A must read for game artists, programmers and game designers at large.
February 25, 2015
Interesting and useful, but unnecessarily long.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews