Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design (NRG) (Paperback)

Those who have attended his lectures will enjoy this book ans wiull savour the additions of the other author.

Rollings and Adams on Game Design (hereafter, ‘the book’) covers in broad strokes the elements of game design, both in general terms, and in connection with specific genres. The book begins by identifying the common elements of games of all kinds, and then moves on to discussing the many different classes of game, and what they have in common.

The first section, The Elements of Game Design, is an excellent treatment of the broad-strokes components of game design – a novice designer will find much to educate in this section, and even an experienced pro will find wisdom and opinion well worth the time and money. Topics such as narrative design and game balancing – often ignored – are dealt with in a generalised but comprehensive fashion, and as such this section also serves as an excellent introduction to the role of a game designer.

The main body of the book is in the second section, which consists of individual chapters covering various game genres. Because no single standard for game genre exists, the choice of genres may raise some eyebrows with some people, but within the context of the book the genre choices are very sensible and provide a good framework.

The quality of the genre chapters is variable, but generally of an excellent standard. Some are truly exceptional however, in particular that on Sports Games and the sub-section on Games for Girls contain information very hard to gain from another source. Chapters on Action, Strategy, Vehicle simulations and Construction/Management sims provide a solid discussion of the key features of these genres, although Action has been defined in such a way as to seem biased towards shooters and against platform games. It may have been worth considering these two largely divergent genres as separate forms – but to do so would have been to risk fragmenting the focused nature of the material.

Chapters on Adventure Games, A-life and other minority pursuits are quite possibly the best summary of the forms available anywhere, and the chapter on online games (written with the assistance of Raph Koster) is a superb précis of a notoriously difficult to summarise area.

There are some drawbacks, but mostly due to the generalised nature of the work. Because the book must cover everything, it necessarily covers everything briefly. Many of the chapters end when you are just beginning to get a taste for the details. As the authors note, an attempt to cover everything in detail would be the work of several volumes.

Similarly, although much is said of the process of game mechanic design and game world abstraction, little is said of the process of design where it relates to the involvement of the team as a whole. Game design is often a process of ‘game design co-ordination’ – managing the design of the game through the changing world of the development cycle. The book provides no help for this challenging task – which again would need a book of its own to cover thoroughly.

That aside, this book is an essential reference for any game designer with less than ten years of experience, and especially for anyone new to the practice of game design. People with an interest in games will learn a tremendous amount about the underlying mechanisms of game design, and need not worry about complex mathematics or other technical detail, as most of the book is written in very easy-to-follow prose.

For anyone who has started on the path of a game designer, or who is interested in game design, Rollings and Adams on Game Design offers a superb breadth of information and should be considered an essential purchase.