Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping & Playtesting Games by Tracy Fullerton, Chris Swain, and Steven Hoffman covers the core concepts and best practices of game design. It is organized into three parts. The first part gives a formal description of all of the different aspects of games, to build a framework for discussing how to design them. The second part talks about the iterative process as it applies to game design (in particular, how to prototype, focus test and playtest, and respond to feedback); in fact, this is the only game design book I’ve seen so far that does so. The last part gives an overview of the game industry and the job roles and responsibilities of the game designer.

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