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Players Making Decisions: Game Design Essentials and the Art of Understanding Your Players
Game designers today are expected to have an arsenal of multi-disciplinary skills at their disposal in the fields of art and design, computer programming, psychology, economics, composition, education, mythology--and the list goes on. How do you distill a vast universe down to a few salient points?Players Making Decisions brings together the wide range of topics that are most often taught in modern game design courses and focuses on the core concepts that will be useful for students for years to come. A common theme to many of these concepts is the art and craft of creating games in which players are engaged by making meaningful decisions. It is the decision to move right or left, to pass versus shoot, or to develop one's own strategy that makes the game enjoyable to the player. As a game designer, you are never entirely certain of who your audience will be, but you can enter their world and offer a state of focus and concentration on a task that is intrinsically rewarding.This detailed and easy-to-follow guide to game design is for both digital and analog game designers alike and some of its featuresA clear introduction to the discipline of game design, how game development teams work, and the game development process Full details on prototyping and playtesting, from paper prototypes to intellectual property protection issues A detailed discussion of cognitive biases and human decision making as it pertains to games Thorough coverage of key game elements, with practical discussions of game mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics Practical coverage of using simulation tools to decode the magic of game balance A full section on the game design business, and how to create a sustainable lifestyle within it
480 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 21, 2015
About the author
Zack Hiwiller
7 books13 followersZack Hiwiller is a game designer, educator and writer living in Orlando, FL.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 28, 2021
It’s my first book on this subject, I find a lot of information that I relevant to my search about (how to design a game), I can’t say it’s good or bad or average, may in near future I’ll visit it back to give it honest feedback and review, but today it’s a good start to me in this field and I’ll follow it by 3 to 4 books this year to fuel my feeling and unconscious about the fundamental principle in game design
April 13, 2020
First book I've read in this subject and it showed as a really useful reading. It has a lot of well based (both empirically and with external cases) for developing a game from ideas to cash flow. Most areas are covered both 101 and mid level problems/possible solution.
Another great surprise were the references, I relied a lot on it, most of chapter give consistent sources to referenced studies, I've read a lot of them, from game feel to economy, I've spent 20~30% of reading external studies.
My (not so structured) notes from book:
- A philomath is a lover of learning (didn't know this one!)
- Their real goal was not the one perfect pot, but better and better pots.
- Products that are identical to their competitors are called commodities.
- Rigid definitions hurt multidisciplinary fields.
- If you make something clever and someone calls it "not a game", you still made something.
- Best problem statements should get down to the concrete design goal.
- Although students answered the same as the other participants in this exercise, the difference between the and the professionals is that the design professionals were willing to come back with better answers later. Professionals tend to keep digging away at the idea until they have explored all of its facets. And, as a result, they can choose from a deep list of ideas. Students, however, tend to stop at the first idea.
- Waterfall definition: A better allusion might have been to black holes (loved this one).
- The idea can be great, but unless you also have the resources to implement and iterate it, it risks weighing down the rest of the project.
- Tests proctor prompts the user to narrate everything they are doing, thinking and feeling as they test.
- Do not try to solve problems during the playtest; only identify and understand the problem.
- When people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
- You should take all possible steps to avoid introducing bias.
- Your job is not to make sure they have fun, but to see where or if they have fun.
- You can't hear your playtesters' toughts, so take steps to make sure they talk loud.
- Game designers have far more ideas than they have time to implement.
- Include early mini-payoffs/climaxes so players become interested while learning the game.
- Designers overestimate what the player skills are in the short run and underestimate in the long run.
- Always underestimate what the player will be able to understand instinctually early in the game.
- Flow is the state in between frustration and boredom that drives player motivation.
- Every player has a different tolerance for how much experimentation she'll endure prior to reaching her goals before she simply quits.
- ... lists eight different kind of meaning for "fun" word
- mechanics lead to runtime player behavior known as dynamics, which in turn result in player emotions
- the young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions
- each verb must relate to something a player does to affect the state of the game within the game rules
- money changing hands is only one type of cost. Any limited resource can be a cost.
- designer uses progression because he feels he needs to reward the players explicitly
- a puzzle is fun and it has a right answer (brake this wall)
- Variable interval is great for slow and steady engagement.
- Fixed interval is largely effective only for engagement around the interval points.
- Fixed ratio is great for a burst of engagement.
- Variable ratio is great for lots of engagement.
- Extinction occurs when a reward no longer generates the anticipated behavior.
- construct in constructivism means that each individual learner is constantly constructing new models of knowledge based on what they already know
- cognitive load is the measure of how much information a player can manage at once
- unless they were being rewarded for it, they no longer wanted to draw!
- for most players, the only thing a global leaderboard manages to tell you is that you suck
- scarcity makes us value things more and motivates us to acquire
- intrinsic motivation is the motivation to do something as its own end
- the three desires in self-determination the theory that help predict human motivation are: autonomy, mastery and relatedness
- attribution error is the tendency to assign dispositional factors to the actions of others and situational factors to your own actions
- they are not liars (for this reason, at least); they just are not in a position to be able to view the thing fairly
- endowment effect: it states that you value something more that is in your possession
- people are more sensitive to losses than gains
- items that are well-understood are easier to remember
- use images and words for the best retention
- humans make impressions of people after less than a tenth of a second
- determine purpose, desired scope, connected systems
- no one ever closed a deal by having clever transictions
- text that is too small too low-contrast for an audience member
- company logo or template cruft on every slide
- risk comes from not knowing what you are doing
- are the rules needed to understand how this game would work effectively communicated?
- is there an interesting hook for the game that is effectively communicated? this should be given early!
- create separate artifacts for your presentation notes, for the data and graphics shown to the audience, and fro the audience to take home
- projects made without crunch had higher scores on both subjective outcomes
- revenues in the game industry are pareto-distributed
- to err and err and err again, but less and less
- celebrate the things that are great instead of pointing out the things that are not
Another great surprise were the references, I relied a lot on it, most of chapter give consistent sources to referenced studies, I've read a lot of them, from game feel to economy, I've spent 20~30% of reading external studies.
My (not so structured) notes from book:
- A philomath is a lover of learning (didn't know this one!)
- Their real goal was not the one perfect pot, but better and better pots.
- Products that are identical to their competitors are called commodities.
- Rigid definitions hurt multidisciplinary fields.
- If you make something clever and someone calls it "not a game", you still made something.
- Best problem statements should get down to the concrete design goal.
- Although students answered the same as the other participants in this exercise, the difference between the and the professionals is that the design professionals were willing to come back with better answers later. Professionals tend to keep digging away at the idea until they have explored all of its facets. And, as a result, they can choose from a deep list of ideas. Students, however, tend to stop at the first idea.
- Waterfall definition: A better allusion might have been to black holes (loved this one).
- The idea can be great, but unless you also have the resources to implement and iterate it, it risks weighing down the rest of the project.
- Tests proctor prompts the user to narrate everything they are doing, thinking and feeling as they test.
- Do not try to solve problems during the playtest; only identify and understand the problem.
- When people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
- You should take all possible steps to avoid introducing bias.
- Your job is not to make sure they have fun, but to see where or if they have fun.
- You can't hear your playtesters' toughts, so take steps to make sure they talk loud.
- Game designers have far more ideas than they have time to implement.
- Include early mini-payoffs/climaxes so players become interested while learning the game.
- Designers overestimate what the player skills are in the short run and underestimate in the long run.
- Always underestimate what the player will be able to understand instinctually early in the game.
- Flow is the state in between frustration and boredom that drives player motivation.
- Every player has a different tolerance for how much experimentation she'll endure prior to reaching her goals before she simply quits.
- ... lists eight different kind of meaning for "fun" word
- mechanics lead to runtime player behavior known as dynamics, which in turn result in player emotions
- the young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions
- each verb must relate to something a player does to affect the state of the game within the game rules
- money changing hands is only one type of cost. Any limited resource can be a cost.
- designer uses progression because he feels he needs to reward the players explicitly
- a puzzle is fun and it has a right answer (brake this wall)
- Variable interval is great for slow and steady engagement.
- Fixed interval is largely effective only for engagement around the interval points.
- Fixed ratio is great for a burst of engagement.
- Variable ratio is great for lots of engagement.
- Extinction occurs when a reward no longer generates the anticipated behavior.
- construct in constructivism means that each individual learner is constantly constructing new models of knowledge based on what they already know
- cognitive load is the measure of how much information a player can manage at once
- unless they were being rewarded for it, they no longer wanted to draw!
- for most players, the only thing a global leaderboard manages to tell you is that you suck
- scarcity makes us value things more and motivates us to acquire
- intrinsic motivation is the motivation to do something as its own end
- the three desires in self-determination the theory that help predict human motivation are: autonomy, mastery and relatedness
- attribution error is the tendency to assign dispositional factors to the actions of others and situational factors to your own actions
- they are not liars (for this reason, at least); they just are not in a position to be able to view the thing fairly
- endowment effect: it states that you value something more that is in your possession
- people are more sensitive to losses than gains
- items that are well-understood are easier to remember
- use images and words for the best retention
- humans make impressions of people after less than a tenth of a second
- determine purpose, desired scope, connected systems
- no one ever closed a deal by having clever transictions
- text that is too small too low-contrast for an audience member
- company logo or template cruft on every slide
- risk comes from not knowing what you are doing
- are the rules needed to understand how this game would work effectively communicated?
- is there an interesting hook for the game that is effectively communicated? this should be given early!
- create separate artifacts for your presentation notes, for the data and graphics shown to the audience, and fro the audience to take home
- projects made without crunch had higher scores on both subjective outcomes
- revenues in the game industry are pareto-distributed
- to err and err and err again, but less and less
- celebrate the things that are great instead of pointing out the things that are not
February 9, 2026
An extremely helpful set of theoretical, mathematical, cognitive and behavioural considerations and heuristics. Contender for the best wholistic look at game design in printed form. It does exactly what a book on a craft should do: Introduce, expand, deepen, instantiate with case studies and examples, all with the goal of transforming the reader's understanding of the craft into something deep, multifaceted, challenging and exciting. The apparent challenge may outweigh the excitement for beginner-level practitioners, but the clarity of the language manages to accommodate them as well, while the conceptual difficulties mean the book is performing its due diligence by not dumbing things down to appeal to lucrative masses of disinterested outsiders and window-shoppers. Full of insight and integrity.
August 22, 2019
I was impressed by this book and its ability to explain game design simply and with relatable examples. As a non-game developer and more of a game consumer, it was interesting to see the reasoning behind design choices that are made. The tone of the book is professional, while still maintaining a flow that feels like you're having a conversation with the author. This is a good read for game-enthusiasts, whether that be in video games, board games, or even sports.
April 6, 2019
Very interesting book even for non game developers. It teaches many useful techniques, like Monte Carlo simulations and other tricks. The author has a lot of relevant experience that he turned into useful advice and insights.
Easy to read. Definitely recommend.
Easy to read. Definitely recommend.
November 10, 2024
Great book. Delivered more than I expected.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews