Game Designer's Playlist, The

Game Designers: Learn from the Masters!

In The Game Designers Playlist, top game design instructor Zack Hiwiller introduces more than 70 remarkable games, revealing how they work, why they’re great, and how to apply their breakthrough techniques in your own games.

Ranging from Go to Texas Hold’em and Magic: The Gathering to Dishonored 2, Hiwiller teaches indispensable lessons about game decision-making, playability, narrative, mechanics, chance, winning, originality, cheats, and a whole lot more. He gleans powerful insights from virtually every type of game: console, mobile, PC, board, card, and beyond.

Every game is presented in full color, with a single purpose: to show you what makes it exceptional, so you can create legendary games of your own.

Discover how game designers use randomness and luckMake the most of narrative and the narrator’s rolePlace the game challenge front and centerOptimize game mechanics, and place mechanics in a broader contextUncover deep dynamic play in games with the simplest rulesFind better ways to teach players how to playSee what games can teach about the process of game designBuild games with unusual input/output modalitiesExplore winning, losing, and game dynamics beyond “one-vs.-all” Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.