Reading Material
There is no text for this course. Indeed, this course is essentially a “studio” course where we analyze and critique each other’s work. However, it is always good to keep learning new things about games, particularly as you try to expand your knowledge beyond that of CS/INFO 3152. For that reason, we are providing you with severalvtextbooks and other resources for learning about game development.
Textbooks
For those of you who took CS/INFO 3152, you should already have a copy of Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games by Tracy Fullerton. This is a good introductory textbook for the introductory course, particularly because it had some of the best chapters on prototyping available.vWith that said, you probably want to expand out from this text. Here is a list of alternative textbooks that you might wish to check out.
Rules of Play
This is the academic text on game design, and is a must read for anyone who wants towork in games. Some people criticize it for an overly formal approach to the field, but this just means that its strengths are in rules and mechanics rather than more artistic aspects of game design. It has the added bonus that it is available as an e-book. through the Cornell library (must be accessed from a Cornell IP address).
The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology
This is a companion text to Rules of Play, consisting of individual articles written by people on various topics in game design. While it is not available as an e-book, there is a copy in Uris Library.
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses
This book is a reaction against the heavy formalism present in Rules of Play. It approaches game design more from a HCI (human computer interaction) perspective. As with Rules of Play, it is available as an e-book through the Cornell library (must be accessed from a Cornell IP address).
Challenges for Game Designers
This book is less of a how-to and more of a collection of exercises to give you practice with game design. It was written as a part of the game design curriculum at the Savanah College of Art and Design (SCAD). We used the text in this course one year, but it is more appropriate as an extra resource than a primary text. It is available as an e-book through the Cornell library (must be accessed from a Cornell IP address).
A Theory of Fun
Raph Koster’s text on the nature of fun is still a bit controversial, but he understands the social game phenomenom better than just about anyone (and he gives some of the best GDC talks. While it is not available as an e-book, there is a copy in Uris Library.
Introduction to Game Development
As an antidote to all of the design texts, this is a text that focuses heavily on the software aspects of game development. It is by Steve Rabin, one of the founders of the AI Wisdom series. It is not a bad book, and is a decent resource. Its presentation of software engineering and architecture, however, are a bit lacking. It is available as an e-book through the Cornell library (must be accessed from a Cornell IP address).
Online Resources
In addition to the above texts, there are several online resources that you may find valuable. We have separated these by area of interest.
Software Development
There are many, many game-related software development resources online. Game programmers have a long history of sharing information with one another as they tackle hard problems. Indeed, sometimes you can learn a lot about the industry from just reading a developer’s blog. With that said, there are certain sites that are very well known “one stop” resources for game developers. Here are just a few that we know.
Game Dev Net
This site is the Redit of Game Development. Its forums are comprehensive, and it is always the first place you should look when trying to understand how to do something in game development.
AI Wisdom
This site is really just a table of contents for the various books in the Charles River Media collection. However, these books are major venue for game developers to share their wisdom, and it is worth owning some of these books.
Game Design
Most of the best game design resources are textbooks. With that said, there are some a few value online resources for you to look at.
The Designer’s Notebook
In many ways, Ernest Adam’s website is even better than his popular textbook. The No Twinkie Database is a great resource for learning from the mistakes of yeterday to make the games of tomorrow.
Game Developer
Formerly known as Gamasutra, this site is a major source for game designers and developers, as it contains summaries of GDC presentations written for a more general audience. It is also a common venue for industry postmortems.
The Art of Computer Game Design
This is Chris Crawford’s famous essay on the topic, written in the 1990s. With that said, his approach is very, very different than the one we use in this course.
User-Interface Design
In addition to general game design, there are some online resources that focus specifically on the user-interface aspects of game development. Here are two of note.
The Game UI Database
This website is a massive collection of screenshots from various games, all focusing on their interface design. It is an excellent reference to give you ideas on how to design the interface for your game.
User Interfaces for Games
This is a lecture given at the University of Michigan by David Kieras. It is really an adaptation of general HCI principles to games, and the fit is not always perfect. There is a bit too much focus on input speed and productivity, and not on experience. However, but there is some interesting information to be found in this lecture.
Audio and Music
If you are interested in this material, you should really talk to the faculty in the music department. We have some great faculty at Cornell that specialize in This course no longer has a track in music or game audio. We generally only recruited two or three musicians a year, and most of the teams ended up using music from Newgrounds (see below). Furthermore, we could no longer support them in the course reorganization. With that said, we still provide several of the resources here.
The Newgrounds Audio Library
If you do not have a talented musician on your team, that is okay. The Newgrounds Audio Library has a vast library of material that you can use in your game without violating copyright. Please respect the licensing requirements for any material you use. They often require credit, which means credit in both the game itself and in the game manual.
Sound-Music-Interactive-Games
This site started out as a developer blog for audio in computer games. It has now morphed into a collection of resources and tutorials. It has the advantage that it is very game focused, as opposed to the other sites which include general audio production.
AudioTuts
This site is good one for building up your fundamentals in audio design. It is primarily a collection of tutorials in audio engineering and sound design. With that said, they are not specifically targeted at games.
Sound on Sound
This website is a huge collection of tutorials on general audio engineering and sound design.