Raph Koster - Theory of Fun for Game Design

A Theory of Fun for Game Design

Raph Koster

Beijing Cambridge Farnham Kln Sebastopol Tokyo

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my kids, without whom I never would have written it, and to Kristen, because I always promised my first book would be for her.

Without her, thered be no book.

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The best game design book I have ever read.

David Jaffe, creative director of God of War

Does for games what Understanding Comics did for sequential art. Non-gamers: Buy this for the gamer in your life. Gamers: Buy this for the non-gamer in your life. Youll never look at fun the same way again.

Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and Pirate Cinema ; co-editor of Boing Boing

One of 50 Books For Everyone In the Game Industry

EDGE

One of the Five Books You Should Read About Game Design

1up.com

If youre interested in game design, get it and read it.

Steve Jackson, designer of Munchkin and GURPS

*****

Midwest Book Review

...Its a book I sincerely believe everyone should have read at least once in their lifetime. Its that important... what Campbell and Vogler did to storytelling, Koster has done to play...This book is history in the making. It will be referred to in seminal books whose authors have not yet even been born.

GameDev.net

An excellent, even foundational, read for anyone interested in creating experiences that challenge and engage minds.

Learning Solutions Magazine

An absolute classic on the theory of playing games.

Tom Chatfield, author of Fun, Inc.

Koster successfully bridges the gap between game design practice and academic theory... For anyone interested in the relationship between games and human experience, this book is a must-read.

Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society

Koster outlines a convincing manifesto for why people do or dont have a good time in games in A Theory of Fun . He also makes us feel very very not smart.

Game Informer Magazine

You cannot possibly read it and not feel at least twice like your brain has been hit by lightning.

Jessica Mulligan, online gaming pioneer

Anyone that wants to know what REALLY makes a game fun needs to read this book.

Chris Melissinos, curator of the Smithsonians Art of Videogames exhibit

The arcane mysteries of game design go poof with this delightful approach to the fundamentals of fun.

Computer Games Magazine

Gaming is much more than having funit is core to being human. Understanding games, and fun, helps us understand ourselves. Raph Koster is one of the good guys, always working to make more fun in our world. With this book hes just helped all of us, his readers and students, do exactly that.

Mike McShaffry, author of Game Coding Complete

Koster has written one of the best books for our industry. I hope everyone adds it to their bookshelf.

Scott Miller, CEO of 3DRealms

****

Training Media Review

A Theory of Fun elucidates some basic truths that apply not just to games but to all entertainment. Even better, it does so in a style that is clear, insightful, and... fun! I expect this book to become an instant classic, fascinating to anyone who has ever made a game--or played one.

Noah Falstein, Chief Game Designer at Google

An important and valuable book.

Ernest Adams, game designer

Please do yourself a favor and pick up a copy.

Brenda Romero, designer of Train

A book about fun which is actually fun to read. It reminds me of Scott McClouds Understanding Comics a work which makes sophisticated arguments by pulling them down to basic principles and presenting them in an engaging fashion. Raph Koster offers a road map for how to make games an even more expressive medium.

Dr. Henry Jenkins, USC

Everyone from professional game developers to those who want to understand why we play games will enjoy A Theory of Fun .

Cory Ondrejka, Facebook

My favorite work on this subject to date and therefore I highly recommend it.

David Perry, of Shiny Entertainment, Gaikai, and Sony

Raph Koster asks the important question about games: why are they fun, and what does that say about games and about us? [It is] a tour of the nature of consciousness, how games do and do not intersect with reality, the difference between games and stories, and the seven different kinds of fun. Its a tour youll be glad to take with him.

Clay Shirky, NYU

Great sophistication yet without a trace of pretention or even an excess of big words.

Michael Feldstein, SUNY Learning Network

A Theory of Fun is a must read for anyone who wants to understand why games are so pervasive today, as it sheds new light into why fun matters in this world, and how play makes us truly human.

Dan Arey, designer on the Jak and Daxter series

Tackles the questions of fun and engagement in a fun and engaging way.

Learning Circuits , American Society for Training and Development

Everyone involved in game designstudents, teachers, and professionalsshould read this.

Ian Schreiber, co-author of Challenges for Game Designers

A delightful read. This book fills the game apologist niche in my bookshelf.

Dan Cook, game designer of Triple Town

A very fun book :D executed in a witty entertaining style.

Michael Samyn of Tale of Tales

Kosters A Theory of Fun is well-written, timely, passionate and scientifically informed, a fine piece of work thats bound to get lots of well-deserved attention.

Dr. Edward Castronova, Indiana University and author of Exodus to the Virtual World

If there is a game designer lurking anywhere in your soul, this book may not be the Bible of game design, but I would certainly include it in the Apocrypha (the missing books of the Bible)... [E]ssential reading. I cant imagine anyone in the game industry who would not profit from enjoying this delightful book.

Alan Emrich, Art Institute of California

[One of] my very favorite books of all time... Raph, the Creative Lead of Many a Famous Online Game looks first at Human Nature, and from that, he deduces that games are very important, and puts forward formulae for understanding games. You end up going, Woah.

George The Fat Man Sanger, game audio legend

Well worth reading. It wont take long to get through; and there is a great deal of thoughtfulness crammed into its few pages.