Contemporary Perspectives on Game Design
For centuries, great artists have had a secret.
If you paint, don’t just study painting.
Great painters study every medium: painting, ceramics, sculpture, glassblowing... because the perspectives from every other medium make them better painters.
But you say: I’m a computer game designer!
That’s right. Just as great painters study textiles, great computer game designers study other sorts of games. Strategy games. War games. Miniatures. Role playing games. If you don’t believe us, ask yourself: Who designed Quake and Doom, and what did he design first?
In the words of Greg Costikyan: Don’t be a vidiot! If your sole experience of games derives from the arcade, the console, and the home PC...You will see only what exists in the here and now...Your palette of techniques, your grasp of the possible, will be limited..
