| There is magic in games.
Not magic like a Level 19 fi reball spell is magic. Not the kind of magic you get when you purchase a trick in a magic store. And not the kind of mystical experience that organized religion can go on about. No, games are magic in the way that fi rst kisses are magic, the way that fi nally arriving at a perfect solution to a diffi cult problem is magic, the way that conversation with close friends over good food is magic.
The magic at work in games is about fi nding hidden connections between things, in exploring the way that the universe of a game is structured. As all game players know, this kind of discovery makes for deeply profound experiences. How is it possible that the simple rules of chess and Go continue to evolve new strategies and styles of play, even a er centuries and centuries of human study? How is it that the nations of the entire world, and even countries at war with each other—at war!—can come together to celebrate in the conflict of sport? How do computer and video games, seemingly so isolating, pierce our individual lives and bring us together in play?
To play a game is to realize and reconfi gure these hidden connections—between units on a game board, between players in a match, between life inside the game and life outside—and in so doing, create new meaning. And if games are spaces where meaning is made, game designers are the meta-creators of meaning, those who architect the spaces of possibility where such discovery takes place.
Which is where this book comes in. You are reading these words because you are interested in not just playing games, but in making them. Take my word for it: Game Design Workshop is one of the very few books that can truly help you to make the games that you want to make. Those games bursting from your heart and from your imagination. The ones that keep you up at night demanding to be designed. Games that are brimming with potential for discovery, for meaning, for magic. |