A collection of books that will expand your game design practice. A few were written with games in mind, but most were not.
Many of the best game designers I know are sponges: they absorb a little bit of everything they come into contact with. They squirrel away nuggets of information until one day, they’ll run into a particularly difficult design problem. Then, like magic, they’ll pull out a piece of wisdom or an esoteric fact that makes everything click into place. Sometimes it’s something small: an idea in a brainstorming meeting or a suggestion for a new feature. In other cases, their insight can shift their whole team’s approach to a problem.
As a designer, you have something unique to contribute that can only emerge from your particular blend of thoughts and experiences. As you widen your range of experiences, you’ll find that you can tackle your design problems from more interesting angles.
With that in mind, I’ve put together a collection of books that have, directly or indirectly, informed my game design process. Some of these books are specific to game design, but most were written with other fields in mind. They’ve had impacts on the way I work with people, the way I approach problem-solving, and the way I see the world.
You can read the whole article on Medium.