Designing Games - A Guide to Engineering Experiences (OReilly, 2013)

How do you design a video game that people love to play? In this practical
guide, game designer Tynan Sylvester shows you how to create emotionally
charged experiences through the right combination of game mechanics,
fictional wrapping, and story. You’ll learn design principles and practices
used by top studios, backed by examples from today’s most popular games.

This book also takes you through the day-to-day process necessary to
keep your project on track: when to build and when to test, how to work
with a team, and how to avoid creative dead ends.

Explore topics such as:

• Integration: thread fictional elements and games rules together into a single system of meaning
  
• Emergence: generate plot, character, and theme in response to a player’s decisions
  
• Compulsion: understand the difference between motivating players and fulfilling them, and how to do each
  
• Elegance: maximize a game’s emotional power and variety of play experiences while minimizing the burden on players—and your team
  
• Iteration: plan, test, and analyze your design in stages instead of trying to decide everything up front
  

Tynan Sylvester has been designing games for 12 years. During that time
he has worked on everything from independently produced games to the
big-studio blockbuster BioShock Infinite.