Think Like A Game Designer: The Step-by-Step Guide to Unlocking Your Creative Potential , Gary, Justin, eBook - Amazon.com

Think Like a Game Designer is a wonderful guide for designers of all kinds, with a focus on what makes games tick.The author walks through a step by step process to turn your idea into a finished game and gives guidance about how to think about each step and improve your skills as you go along.The exercises in each chapter make the process fun and encourage the reader to put the lessons into practice.This is a great book I would recommend to anyone interest in game design or the principles of design in general.

I've known Justin as an acquaintance for years. After reading this masterwork, I realize how lucky I was to have been exposed to him again at one of his frequent free workshops during a gaming convention recently. I purchased this book immediately when I got home.Within these pages, Justin manages to craft a compelling story of creativity in actionable terms. More impressively, the exercises in most sections force you to craft your own internal narrative of creativity by doing the work while surrounded by the context of progress, both personally and through examples from his successful designs.

This might just be the best book I’ve read about how to design, test, and complete great games. It’s full of both general theory and specific instructions about what to do and not do. I’ve taken a ton of notes to work from, and now just need to implement them! Highly recommended if you’re making any kind of tabletop game.

This books gives a lot of obvious advice, but forces you to take action on it. It also is detailed enough to really make sure you understand each step. My only issue is that he is constantly giving the reader links to websites and tools to help you and every single one of them no longer work. It's pretty frustrating since many of them are on his own website, so there's really no excuse for them to no longer exist.

Professional development books are always a bit of gamble. However, this one is pretty great. It gives a view on training and exercise activities, offers additional resources, and has an easy and engaging writing style. One other great thing is that while there is professional jargon, the terms are also put in terms that a layman or beginner can understand.