Think Like a Game Designer: The Step-by-Step Guide to Unlocking Your Creative Potential

By: Justin Gary

Narrated by: Justin Gary

Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

Do you love gaming? Do you have ideas for games of your own and want to learn how to produce them professionally?

Longtime game designer Justin Gary has the answers you seek. After 20 years in the gaming industry, creating such games as Solforge, Ascension, and the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game, Justin is now sharing all his secrets in Think Like a Game Designer. Best of all, Justin’s secrets are really simple, practical, and common sense steps you can take yourself.

Justin will walk you through each step and provide exercises for you to formulate your own game concepts and bring them to fruition.

In Think Like a Game Designer, you will learn how to:

• Overcome mental blocks to great creative work
• Understand players’ emotional reactions and evoke the right ones
• Brainstorm ideas and then refine them into useable ones
• Follow the six steps of the core design loop for successfully designing a game
• Capitalize on the excitement of Big Moments in a game
• Get a job in the game industry and get your games published
• Remove the grind of gaming or use it to your advantage
• Integrate monetization into your designs
• Deliver an enjoyable experience to your players so your game stands the test of time

Whether you want to create video games, board games, or just discover how a true creative mind works, it’s all here in Think Like a Game Designer. It’s time to take the first step toward your game designer dream. Are you game?

©2018 Justin Gary (P)2021 Justin Gary

not a game designer, but still applicable

I'm just a regular fiction author but this book helped give me tips and motivation for my next project and maybe even picking up old projects to make better.

Concise and Inspiring!

Great book on the role of a designer. Do the exercises, they are worth it!

Very motivating.

This book is full of good advice, useful stategy, and great perspective. It's well worth a listen.

Key ideas

This audiobook is great and presents good ideas for game building and also helping you avoid common things that your audience would turn from your game. The concepts in this book can also be applied to writing stories or doing other projects outside of developing a game.

Clear and concise

Lots of good examples and framing on the process of designing games. Already got me interested in pursuing the profession further. Would definitely recommend.

Do you like quotes?

I dont review books often but I don't want people to spend money on this without knowing what they are in for. As I read this book I noticed there are a tremendous amount of unnecessary quotes from irrelevant people. while there is some knowledge hidden in this book, it's mostly the author babbling and giving the impression he is teaching. The author may be a game developer, but his writing skills are at a high-school level. If you have the spare change, get the book. If you are looking for a good resource, go somewhere else.

Valuable Process and Insight Into Game Design

As a person who has tried to create my own games, I was drawn to this title for a number of reasons. Listening to Justin's personal stories and going through the core design loop have allowed me to take my designs from ideas on paper to physical prototypes, and hopefully eventually, to a place where publishing is possible.

Justin goes through his entire creative process from start to finish, mixing in exercises at the end of chapters to allow you to apply his lessons to your games. He goes through a deep, step-by-step walkthrough of how designers should think, perceive game mechanics, and refine their own ideas by removing ego and focusing on player experience. Justin also introduces the parts of game design that are often overlooked by outsiders, such as focusing on cheap prototypes instead of polished products. In addition to the core design loop, Justin also offers advice and insight into the final stages of pitching and publishing a finished product.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone with any interest in game design, whether casually or professionally. I'm looking forward to seeing my games come to life using these lessons!

Practical

Having read many books in game design, this one is the most practical. It presents a detailed and useful program for game design. For me especially useful was the section on game mechanics.

Excellent Book for game designers

This book is straight-forward and super helpful. As a game designer, I cannot wait to implement the many techniques described in this book.

Gaming Inspiration

As a lifelong gamer, and game development hobbist, I found many aspects of his creation process insightful. I wish more time had been spent diving into a few topics in more detail, but it was a great process for getting started with game development.