[game_edu] suggestions for readings?

[Ian Schreiber]

Hi Kim and others,
 
Great topic!
 
A word of warning: "fun" is an extremely broad area of study. "What makes games fun?" is essentially the question that the entire field of game design is concerned with, so I'd advise setting expectations early in the course -- students are not going to find all the answers in a single class, it would take a full four-year degree just to scratch the surface, really -- you're just going to teach them to start asking the right questions. I like to open this kind of course by asking for a show of hands: who finds the classic board game Chess "fun"? Invariably, about half of the hands go up; the other half think it's Not Fun. Ah ha -- proof that "fun" is not just a property of the game, but the combination of game and player. It's not so simple a concept as it first appears.
 
I'd also advise not limiting yourself to video games. The world of board games (particularly the so-called "Eurogame" variety -- Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Bohnanza, Puerto Rico, etc.) is great for study of this kind. The mechanics of the game are laid bare, the fun is direct and on the surface. Board games can't hide behind high technology or huge polygon counts; they are either fun for the mechanics or not fun at all. In video games there are more complex layers, so it's a little harder sometimes to tell where the fun is coming from.
 
As for readings, here are some from my intro game design class:
 
* I do mention Koster's Theory of Fun. Unfortunately, last I checked it's out of print (with "buy it used" prices on Amazon exceeding $100), so unless there's been a recent reprinting you might have to satisfy yourself with lectures based on the book's content.
 
* Costikyan's "I Have No Words and I Must Design": www.costik.com/nowords.html - this is one of the first writings on what makes games fun, so it's a great place to start. It also begins the all-important process of building a critical vocabulary to talk about games, something that is sorely lacking in our field (though not for lack of trying).
 
* Church's "Formal Abstract Design Tools": www.gamasutra.com/features/19990716/design_tools_01.htm - Building on Costikyan's work, Doug Church introduces the important concepts of player intention and feedback(among other things).
 
* LeBlanc et al's "MDA Framework": www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf - one of the most influential papers dealing with the concept of "fun" that I know of. If you read nothing else, read this. I'd even put this ahead of Koster, seriously.
 
* Falstein's "Natural Funativity": www.gamasutra.com/features/20041110/falstein_01.shtml - Most writings in the field try to identify what kinds of things we find fun. This article gives a great theory for WHY we find them fun in the first place.
 
* If you want to talk about Flow states (a la Koster), you could always assign some readings from Csikszentmihalyi's original work. Also, don't go overboard with this line of explanation; keep in mind that flow states can't explain all forms of fun and don't hold all the answers. Sex can be fun, even when it has nothing to do with skill mastery ;)
 
- Ian

--- On Sun, 11/9/08, Kim Gregson <kimatiu at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Kim Gregson <kimatiu at gmail.com>
Subject: [game_edu] suggestions for readings?
To: "IGDA Game Education Listserv" <game_edu at igda.org>
Date: Sunday, November 9, 2008, 11:19 AM


Hi everybody,

I"m putting together a seminar (for senior undergrad students) called "Fun and Games" for the spring semester - I want us to study the concept of "fun" and apply it to videogames. Here's my blog post with initial ideas - http://profkim.blogspot.com/2008/11/ideas-for-fun-games-senior-seminar.html

What I'm looking for is suggestions of readings - I think we're going to read Raph Koster's _A theory of fun for game design_ but would like some other things to consider. Any ideas?

And we hope to involve other folks in our conversations - with online discussions and video responses to some of our basic questions. If you would like to be involved (or your class), let me know and I"ll be sure to send you a formal invite after the holidays.

Thanks...Kim Gregson (Ithaca College)
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