Schell - The Art of Game Design

Second Edition

The Art of Game Design

A Book of Lenses

Second Edition

A Book of Lenses

Jesse Schell

Carnegie Mellon University and Schell Games
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

2015 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

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For Nyra
who always listens

I will talk to you of art,
For there is nothing else to talk about,
For there is nothing else.

Life is an obscure hobo,
Bumming a ride on the omnibus of art.

Maxwell H. brock

This has been a long project, and even longer now that it is in second edition. So many people have been kind enough to help make it come into being; I know I am going to miss some.

Nyra and Emma, the loves of my life, who always encouraged me, and put up with years of me staring into space and jotting little notes when I should have been, say, mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, or putting out that fire in the backyard.

My mother, Susanne fahringer, who, when I was twelve, understood somehow that Dungeons & Dragons was very, very important.

My brother, ben, who taught me how to play Thunder, a card game he invented in a dream when he was four years old.

Jeff McGinley, for putting that whole ice cream cone in his mouth. and for put- ting up with me for three decades.

Reagan Heller, who worked with me for countless hours in countless restau- rants, airplanes, and meeting rooms coming up with visualization ideas for the lens images on the card deck, designed the card layouts, and did graphic design for several aspects of the book.

Kim Kiser and Dan lin, who somehow found time to develop the new cover. The entire staff at Schell Games, who gave great feedback, and pretended not to care that I was missing meetings to get the book done.

Emma backer, who performed all the Cinderella taskstypesetting the cards, wrangling the card artists, cleaning up and organizing book images, tracking down copyright holders, and cleaning the ashes from the fireplace.

The team at Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann, who kindly let a two-year project take five years: Tim Cox, Georgia Kennedy, beth Millett, Paul Gottehrer, Chris Simpson, laura lewin, and Kathryn Spencer.

The team at Taylor & francis, especially Rick adams and Marsha Pronin, who let what should have been a six-month editing job turn into an eighteen-month overhaul.

Everyone at the Disney VR Studio who put up with my rambling theoretical non- sense conversations for all those years, especially Mike Goslin, Joe Shochet, Mark Mine, David Rose, bruce Woodside, felipe lara, Gary Daines, Mk Haley, Daniel aasheim, and Jan Wallace.

Katherine Isbister, who served as a mentor for me in several ways, partly by writing the first book in this series, Better Game Characters by Design, but also for giving me practical, technical, and moral support throughout the writing process.

The staff, faculty, and students of Carnegie Mellons Entertainment Technology Center, who graciously let me teach Game Design and building Virtual Worlds, which forced me to figure all this out. Most especially Don Marinelli, Randy Pausch, brenda Harger, Ralph Vituccio, Chris Klug, Charles Palmer, Ruth Comley, Shirley Josh Yelon, Mike Christel, Scott Stevens, John Dessler, Dave Culyba, Mk Haley, anthony Daniels, Jessica Trybus, John Wesner, Carl Rosendahl, Ji-Young lee, Shirley Yee, and Drew Davidson. Special thanks to Drew Davidson for his detailed notes, and to John Dessler, who was the first person to truly appreciate the book.

Randy Pausch deserves a double thank-you, for his magical lens that let him see that I could do this when I didnt believe that I could. Thanks, Randy.

Hello there! Come in, come in! What a nice surpriseI had no idea you would be visiting today. Im sorry if it is a little messy in here, Ive been writing. Please make yourself comfortable. Good, good. Now lets see where should we begin? OhI should introduce myself!

My name is Jesse Schell, and I have always loved designing games. Heres picture of me:

I was shorter then. Since that picture was taken, Ive done a lot of different things. Ive worked in circuses as a professional juggler. Ive been a writer, comedian, and magicians apprentice. Ive worked at IbM and bell Communications Research as a software engineer. Ive designed and developed interactive theme park rides and massively multiplayer games for the Walt Disney Company. Ive started my own game studio, and become a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. but when peo- ple ask me what I do, I tell them that I am a game designer.

I mention all this only because at various times in this book, I will be drawing examples from these experiences, since every single one of them has taught me valuable lessons about the art of game design. That might sound surprising now, but hopefully, as you read this book, it will help you see the ways that game design meaningfully connects to the many experiences in your own life.

One thing I should clarify: While the goal of this book is primarily to teach you how to be a better videogame designer, many of the principles we explore will have little to do with videogames specificallyyou will find they are more broadly applicable than that. The good news is that much of what you read here will work equally well no matter what kind of game you are designingdigital, analog, or otherwise.