Introduction

Every game player is a potential game designer, and that means you.

When you were a kid, you probably started many a game of whiffle ball or Monopoly with a little negotiation over the rules. "If the ball gets stuck in a tree, it's an out," "Chance and Community Chest fines go into a pool, and whoever lands on Free Parking gets the money," and so on. Kids don't hesitate to change the rules of existing games to make them more enjoyable. The participatory nature of playing a game encourages us to think about, and sometimes modify, its rules ”that is, its design. And that's just as true of video games , too. We've all played games that we thought could be improved by a few adjustments.

But some people want to do more than alter the rules; they want to create entirely new games and even new kinds of games. Their heads are full of worlds to play in, characters to encounter, challenges to meet. Because you're reading this, you're almost certainly one of those people. Chances are that right this minute, you've got a great idea for a game your head ”maybe half a dozen of them. But how do you turn a game idea into a game design ?