| Mark Twain once wrote, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education." Schools can give you a good orientation and equip you with important skills, but the larger task of acquiring an education takes a much bigger commitment than merely attending school, getting decent grades, and graduating. Education is a lifelong process; it is unlikely that you will emerge from college with an adequate education to become a game designer. You'll need to learn a great deal more than what you can learn in college. I therefore describe an educational program for prospective game designers that will, I think, give them what they need to excel in this tough job. Good game designers are broadly educated to be comfortable in the world of ideas. They are intellectual jacks-of-all-trades, capable of exploring any field that might become relevant to their designs, and their education gives them a large stock of different ways of thinking about problems. There are four broad areas that a prospective game designer should learn. They are covered in the following sections. Systems Game design requires the creation of systems that are interesting and fun to play with. The world is full of systems. A good game designer should learn about many different systems to provide source material for designs. Here, in order of priority, are books that will teach you about various systems: The Way Things Work by David Macaulay. Required for two reasons: first, the book explains all the basic technology of our civilization, which you should know about, and second, the visual presentations are themselves instructive in graphical technique. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Magnificent! Explains how Europeans were able to conquer the world they had all sorts of biological advantages. Connections by James Burke. The videos are better than the book, but either way, they teach you some important lessons about the nature of discovery. River out of Eden and Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins. Detailed explanations of interesting aspects of evolution theory. Again, handy for understanding complex systems behavior. A History of Warfare, The Mask of Command, and The Face of Battle by John Keegan. Three works from the finest military historian of our times. Military systems have their own logic; using those concepts to illuminate game design problems can prove useful. Six Easy Pieces and Six Not-So-Easy Pieces by Richard Feynmann. Excellent rigorous introduction to some basic concepts in physics. Extracted from the full three-volume set, The Feynmann Lectures on Physics, which would make an ideal followup for the more ambitious student. Bully for Brontosaurus by Stephen Jay Gould. Delightful essays on paleontology and evolution. For that matter, almost any of Gould's books are worthwhile reading. The Rise of the West by William McNeil. A brilliant explanation of Western history from the very beginning. A strong sense of cause and effect pervades the work. Balance of Power by Chris Crawford. Explains in detail the ideas and algorithms behind my biggest hit game. The Story of Law by John Maxcy Zane. Rather old, but still a good basic history of the human struggle to nail down what it means by right and wrong. Law is educational as an attempt to precisely express some very fuzzy ideas; good games often tackle fuzzy ideas, too. Archaeology and Language by Colin Renfrew. Explains how the Indo-European languages came to dominate much of Eurasia. The Structures of Everyday Life, The Wheels of Capitalism, and The Perspective of the World by Fernand Braudel. Dense reading, but these books provide a detailed and fascinating view of the crucial transitional period in Western capitalism from 1400 to 1700. Lots of good ideas about how complex systems behave. Writing Systems by Geoffrey Sampson. Various technologies for writing language. Useful in terms of designing user interfaces. The Origins of English Words by Joseph Twadell Shipley. A dictionary of the Indo-European roots of English words. Did you know that "Catherine" and "castrate" come from the same root? The connections between all sorts of seemingly different words will surprise you. I'm not sure what this has to do with game design, but the book fascinated me. Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger. A history of modern balance-of-power diplomacy in all its fascinating twists and turns. Diplomacy is another complex system that can help inform your design processes. Think about game interactions in terms of balance-of-power diplomacy. How to Make War and A Quick and Dirty Guide to War by James Dunnigan. War has a logic all its own, and Dunnigan's nuts-and-bolts approach shows how to organize big complex efforts. The Descent of the Child by Elaine Morgan. Evolution in terms of infant survival. Song of the Dodo by David Quammen. Island populations and gene pools. At Home in the Universe by Stuart Kaufman. A brilliant explanation of some very complex systems behavior. Advanced material; don't tackle it until you have mastered the basic principles of evolution and chemistry. Will Wright's SimCity was partly inspired by cellular automata theory; so how about a game based on autocatalyzing sets? The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. The single most brilliant book in all of science. Probably best to read an abridged version, as the original proved its case with mind-numbing detail after detail after detail. The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. A bit of a slog, but it's useful to understand the complex reasoning behind one of the landmark documents of history. What Makes People Tick You cannot entertain people if you don't have a clear understanding of what it is to be human. There are a number of routes to understanding the human condition. Evolutionary psychology is useful. On the other hand, I don't much care for rat psychology (the "hard" version of psychology that emphasizes quantitative experiments). It proves many things that are of little value to game designers. Great literature also reveals much of the human condition. Ultimately, however, much of this is a matter of wisdom, not reading. Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga. The definitive work on human play. Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth by James Campbell. How mythology affects the human mind. Most games have some subconscious element of mythology to them; you should understand the basic forces at work. The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. Yes, all 11 volumes. They're an easy read and lay out the basics of (mostly Western) history. You've got to know the basic scheme of history if you're going to put anything else into context. At least three plays by Shakespeare. He's just too important to miss. The Moral Animal and Non-Zero by Robert Wright. The biological history of morality and cooperation. Very useful for understanding some of the most important social systems that govern human behavior. The Prehistory of the Mind by Steven Mithen. Explains the concepts of mental modules; you'll need these concepts to appreciate the way that various forms of challenge interact inside the human mind. Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Everybody should read this as they struggle with early adulthood. Language & Species by Derek Bickerton. The co-evolution of language and humans. The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer. The most important fundamental myth of our civilization. If you don't know these, you can't really appreciate a great deal of what has happened since. Be careful to get a modern prose translation; there are plenty of archaic translations, and some that translate the original Greek verse, which is a bit too artsy for most of us. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Twain was the greatest American author, and this was his masterpiece. It contains many fundamental elements of great storytelling. Death, War, and Sacrifice by Bruce Lincoln. Ancient themes of mythology The Code of the Warrior by Rick Fields. The nature of masculinity. It's nice to understand your customers. Can you explain why big torsos are such powerful indicators of masculinity? When Wish Replaces Thought and Why Men Rule by Steven Goldberg. Lovely, politically incorrect, rigorous thought on social problems. The Acts of King Arthur by John Steinbeck. The best modern rendering of the classic legends. The Socratic Dialogs by Plato. All you really need are the four dialogs dealing with the trial and execution of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. You'll get two big things out of them: an appreciation of the "Socratic method," a powerful form of reasoning, and the power of simple truth. Beyond the Hero by Allen B. Chinen. How a man grows up. Life on the Mississippi and A Tramp Abroad. Two more classics by Mark Twain. Poetics by Aristotle. If you want to entertain people, you must understand the basics of stories. This work lays them out so well that it still dominates much early discussion of narrative. The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Stoicism will help you cope with your boss. The Origins of the Modern Mind by Merlin Donald. Traces how the mind evolved. Not the brain the mind. Good combination of psychology and biology. The Western Canon by Harold Bloom. An overview of the most important literary works of Western civilization. It's not as good as reading all those great works themselves, but who's got time for Beowulf? Touched with Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison. Human creativity and manic-depressive illness. The New Testament by various authors. No, I'm not a Christian. However, this is the most influential book in Western history, so it makes sense to read it. But don't use the old-fogey King James version with its "thee's" and "thou's"; find a modern translation. The Folktale by Stith Thompson. Definitive study of how folktales developed, the common elements in folktales, and all the variations in folktales across cultures. Studies in Words by C.S.Lewis. And you thought he was a fantasy writer! You wouldn't think that so much could be said about a single word, but there it is. The Sea Wolf and The Call of the Wild by Jack London. To jerk you out of the lab and back into a more primitive mental state. Billy Budd by Herman Melville. Good versus evil in a way that's utterly alien to that notion in computer games. Communications A good game designer knows how to express the ideas of the game clearly and powerfully. This requires an appreciation of linguistics and the visual arts, among other things. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Uses comic book methods to explain comic books, an important medium of expression for game designers to consider. The Design of Everyday Things and Turn Signals are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles by Donald Norman. These books will open your eyes to just how badly most things are designed. You will learn the all-important concept of "affordance." Visual Explanations and Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte. These are the premier works on how to present information clearly through the visual medium. These books have an excellent reputation, but I confess that they fell short of my expectations. The Art of Interactivity Design by Chris Crawford. Lays out basic principles of interactivity. Game Design Theory and Practice by Richard Rouse. A more nuts and bolts approach to game design than this book offers; very thorough, and includes interviews with top designers (including me!). Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language by Richard Crystal. Understanding language is crucial for understanding the nature of human communications. Communicating with humans without using linguistic data structures is like interfacing to a computer through its mouse port instead of through the USB or Ethernet. These two books make great reading, and they really cover the ground. The Art of Human-Computer Interface by Brenda Laurel. Random collection of essays, some good, some bad, one by me! Lots of good ideas about user-interface concepts. The Alphabet Effect by Robert Logan. The role of alphabetic writing in the development of civilization. Handy for understanding methodologies for expression. About Face by Alan Cooper. A detailed examination of the basic components of computer interfaces. The Art of the Comic Book by Will Harvey. A medium very close to games. The Liveliest Art by Arthur Knight. A quick, easy history of the cinema. So many game designers compare games with the movies that you should at least be educated about the real thing. The Origins of Writing by Senner. How writing got started. The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin. Delightful, eccentric rants on the failures of computer interface design. Computers as Theater by Brenda Laurel. A quirky, brilliant exposition of a completely different approach to the human-computer interaction. Brenda speaks a different language, which you'll have to adjust to, but it's worth the effort. In addition, there are a number of movies that teach much about communications. I'd like to offer a few older works that you should see, not primarily for their dramatic power, but for their creative example: City Lights and The Gold Rush by Charlie Chaplin. Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo, or any of Alfred Hitchcock's great works. Koyaanisqatsi. A movie that tells a story with no characters, no plot, and no dialog! High Noon. A simple tale, cleanly and powerfully told. The unifying element of the clock is particularly striking, especially at high noon (ahem!). The Red Balloon. Another simple tale well told. Excalibur by John Boorman. This surrealistic representation of the Arthurian legends gets closer to the heart of those legends than anything else. Programming Despite my insistence that programming and game design are two distinct activities, the effective game designer must still possess basic competence as a programmer. Perhaps that will change in a few decades, but for now, it remains the case. Code Complete by Steve McConnell. Good programming practice. Programming is a lot more than just getting the code working, and this book explains how. Algorithms by Sedgewick. You've got to know all the basic algorithms; here they are. Knuth is the standard work in the field, but this is more compact. Read Knuth if you want to understand this material in greater depth. The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth. The classic in the field of computer programming. Covers algorithms and data structures. Not for the timid, these three books are dense with ideas. The Mythical Man-Month by Brooks. Old, but still true: Throwing more people at a project that's behind schedule only makes things worse. Periodicals Education never stops; you should always be learning. Here are two periodicals that will help you keep up with the ever-changing world: The Economist. Thoreau wrote, and this is a poorly-recalled paraphrase, "The majority of what men call news is merely idle gossip. If we read of one ship lost in a storm, one revolution in Spain, or one cow run over on the Western Railway, we need never read of another; the principle is the same." On any scale of sensationalism versus real news content, American television news is at the bottom; it is nothing more than a collage of plane crashes, war victims, and sound bites. American newspapers and newsmagazines are better but still overly dependent upon reaching the gut rather than the mind. The Economist, however, is a serious newsmagazine that concentrates on the forces that are really shaping our world. Most American news is embarrassingly parochial; you'd never know from it that there are other countries in the world, unless they're enemies. The Economist has a truly international outlook. It's more expensive than other newsmagazines, but it's worth it. Scientific American. A good way to keep up with what's going on in the world of science. Unfortunately, Scientific American has dumbed down in the last decade, but it is still the best digest of the progress of science. Science News, a weekly, is also good, but not as in-depth as Scientific American. Exercises Reading and watching aren't enough; you must also try your hand at a variety of active tasks. BASIC STAMP: This is a computer on a chip that you can program in the BASIC language. You can hook up LEDs (little red lights), buzzers, stepper motors, and all sorts of other electronic devices to sense and control the world. You can purchase a variety of kits that include all the accoutrements you need to get started. You'll learn a great deal about digital logic at the hands-on level. Alternatively, you might consider one of the many robotics kits for students; they are more expensive and more detailed, but you learn more. Writing: Join interesting newsgroups and try your hand at writing good contributions to the newsgroups. Don't just toss together random rants compose serious essays on the issues discussed. Do your own writing offline and make sure that you include in each of your posts at least one fact that you had to look up. Don't pay any attention to the foolish flamers and random ranters you'll encounter; concentrate on engaging the brighter members of the group in serious discussion of intricate issues. Your objective should be to learn how to express your thoughts in a clear and convincing manner. Programming: Keep writing programs after you've learned the basics. Build micro-games that try out interesting algorithms or systems. Don't worry about graphics or sound; concentrate on getting an internal system operational. If you can play with your system using simple blips, beeps, and clicks, that's good enough for the educational purpose. Self-probing: Take up some mildly dangerous hobby: motorcycling, skateboarding, surfing, skydiving, rock climbing, or skiing. Measure yourself against your own limits. Can you accurately gauge the limits of your abilities? How close can you come to those limits and still be absolutely, positively certain that you are not exceeding them? Can you calmly assess risk and make sound judgements when your youthful cockiness goads you to push harder? Manual creativity: Make things with your hands. Build wooden structures; make pots; carve wood; polish rocks; build gardens or fences; make model airplanes or railroads; pour concrete; repair cars or motorcycles. Get your hands dirty. Social education: Break out of that suffocating circle of people who are just like you; all they do is reinforce your false conceptions. Make friends of people you wouldn't normally make friends with: fundamentalist Christians, old people, factory workers, artists, skinheads, leather-clad motorcyclists, gays or straights, waitresses, people from different ethnic groups, somebody who doesn't speak your language well. It's especially useful to make friends with a foreigner. Sure, they're different, and sure they have lots of attitudes you disagree with. So what? They still have something useful to teach you. Concentrate on discovering the commonalities you share and diplomatically pass over your differences. One good tip on getting started: no matter who they are, no matter what their culture, asking them about their family will always break the ice. Family is one absolute universal. Swap family stories. Observe: The world is full of surprises to one whose eyes are open. I recently visited a submarine museum. All the other visitors wandered through the submarine rather quickly, but I took the time to notice and wonder about details: where did that pipe go? Why were there so many valves on that pipe? How are the batteries connected together? I had a lot more fun than the others, I think, because I combined observation with wonder. When you drive down a street, look at the houses. Why are they built the way they are? Can you tell which houses are older and which are newer? What can you tell about the occupants just by looking at the outside of the house? When you're in the country, can you tell which way the water flows across the land? Why are the trees spaced the way they are? Look at the sky. Its color changes from day to day can you notice the changes? Watch clouds move, grow, and shrink. Why do they do that? LESSON 24 Learn everything you can. |
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