The Art Of Computer Game Design
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''The Art of Computer Game Design'' by Chris Crawford is the first book page 4 devoted to the theory of
computer and video games ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') is a British-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot web ...
. The book attempts to categorize computer games and talks about design precepts that serve as guidelines for game designers. It was originally published in
Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...
, by
McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American education science company that provides educational content, software, and services for students and educators across various levels—from K-12 to higher education and professional settings. They produce textbooks, ...
/Osborne Media in 1984. The original edition became available as a free download from a site maintained by
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, Pullman in 1997. In 2011 the free download was removed and the text is currently available as a Kindle
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.


Background

Crawford in 1981 and 1982 coauthored a series of technical articles in ''
BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...
'' on developing games for the
Atari 8-bit The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of home computers introduced by Atari, Inc., in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The architecture is designed around the 8-bit MOS Technology 650 ...
computers. The articles were collected into '' De Re Atari''. In December 1982 he published an article in ''BYTE'' on abstract aspects of game design, using '' Legionnaire'' as example.


Reception

Calling the author "a master of computer game design", ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...
'' complimented Crawford using his own games as examples of success and failure, and recommended the book to both game designers and players.
Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. , he is the only person to have won a Hugo Award for Best Novel, Hugo Award and a Nebula Award for Best Novel, Nebula Award in List of joint ...
was less favorable, writing in ''
Ahoy! ''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, covering on all Commodore color computers, primarily Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 1984. The ...
'' that "when one of the best computer game designers in the business writes a book about computer game design, you expect it to be wonderful ... And when 'The Art of Computer Game Design''turned out to be merely fascinating but often shallow and sometimes just plain wrong-headed, I was disappointed".


See also

* List of books about video games *'' Chris Crawford on Game Design'', another book by Crawford


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Art of Computer Game Design, The 1984 non-fiction books Books about video games McGraw-Hill books