More reviews and commentary have popped up!
Michael Feldstein has some very positive things to say:
…one of the best work-related books I’ve read in quite some time. It is also one of the strangest. Written in a simple, plain-spoken style with relatively few words on a page and an illustration on every facing page, printed in a shape that is wider than it is tall, the book feels very much like a children’s book. But don’t be fooled. The level of sophistication, both in the narrative construction and in the content itself, is impressive. The result is that you can plow through this book very quickly and yet absorb some very rich and subtle concepts.
The forums at IndieGamer have also been discussing it, though as do many other sites, they veer into talking about Star Wars Galaxies instead… *sigh*
Over at Wallo World, a blogger uses the book to poke at the recent case where a school decided not to sponsor a Halo 2 tournament. He’s also got a more detailed review of the book up:
This entertaining and innovative book is ostensibly for game designers. Personally, I think it is more than that: it’s a primer for anyone interested in games, both for how they work and what we think of them. Written by Raph Koster, the chief creative officer for Sony Online Entertainment, it isn’t an artificial or inflated study in how to build a particular kind of game. Instead, it is a wide-ranging intellectual foray into what games mean, both to individuals and society, and how they operate on a host of different levels…
Koster clearly wants to reach a point where games are recognized as a form of artistic expression, and he is trying to articulate a worthwhile conceptual framework to explore what games really mean, both to us as individuals and to society as a whole. Some portions of the book are more clearly directed to game designers than others, but on the whole I’d say that there is much in A Theory of Fun for Game Design to interest even those who would rather play games than design them.
Even the Nonprofit Online News gets into the act:
Raph Koster’s A Theory of Fun for Game Design is an important book. On one level, it’s a manifesto for social responsibility and artistry in game design. On another level, it’s an insightful exploration of human motivation and learning with extensive application to the worlds of grassroots education and activism. One example: Games will turn people off if they are too difficult, as well as if they are too easy. There is a sweet spot where people are in a zone of greatest learning and effectiveness. I think the same holds true for social change work.
Looks like GameDev.Net has a review ready as well, but the link doesn’t quite work yet. [link fixed now] And a while back I forgot to mention that CliffyB declared the book “fascinating.”
