The Art of Game Design 名言佳句、重點整理

第零章 - Hello Game Design !#

Designer is a role, not a person.
Anyone who makes decisions about how the game should be is a game designer. When you make them, you are a game designer.
An understanding of the principles of game design will make you better at what you do.

We are in a position something like the ancient alchemists. In the time before Mendeleev discovered the periodic table, showing how all the fundamental elements were interrelated, alchemists relied on a patchwork quilt of rules of thumb about how different chemicals could combine.
Game designers await their Mendeleev. At this point we have no periodic table. We have our own patchwork of principles and rules, which, less than perfect, allows us to get the job done.

Many people assume that to best study the principles of game design, one would naturally study the most modern, complex, high-tech games that are available. This approach is completely wrong.
The rules that govern them (traditional and new medium) are the same.
An architect must understand how to design a shed before he can design a skyscraper, and so, we will often be studying some of the very simplest games.
The principles that make the classic games fun are the same principles that make the most modern games fun.
The classic games have the added advantage that they have withstood the tests of time.
These classic games have deeper qualities that, as game designers, we must learn to understand.

To succeed, to create something great and innovative, you have to do something different.
If you were surprised by the focus this book places on non-computer games, you will be even more surprised to see how it uses principles, methods, and examples from things that aren’t even games. Examples from music, architecture, film, science, painting, literature, and everything else under the sun will be pulled in.
Design principles will come from everywhere because design is everywhere, and design is the same everywhere.

To truly understand game design is to understand an incredibly complex web of creativity, psychology, art, technology, and business. Everything in this web is connected to everything else.
Most experienced designers have built up this web in their minds, slowly, over many years, learning the elements and relationships by trial and error.
By the end of the book, you will have, both on paper and in your mind, a map of these relationships. Of course, the map on paper is not the important one — the important one is the one in your mind.

To truly learn, remember, and understand, your mind must be in a state of questing, of seeking to find knowledge. If it is not in this state, a state of really wanting to deeply understand, the wisest principles will roll off you like water off a duck.

Please do not think that reading this book, or any book, will make you into a game designer, much less a great game designer. Game design is not a set of principles, it is an activity.
There is only one path to becoming a game designer, and that is the path of designing games — and more to the point, designing games that people really like.