Dabbling in Design

A book that helped with my game design was recommended by Mark Rosewater called A Whack on the Side of the Head. It's a book on creativity. It's a little tough to read at some points but the content is great.

That is a great name for a book.

The follow up book is called A Kick in the Seat of the Pants.

At first glance I thought you were taking a Sinatra route with that.

"Aint that a kick in the head?" was Dean Martin though.. right? maybe its just the version that always comes to mind haha

Depends on how you look at it. The line was given by Sinatra in a movie with both of then in it that was filmed a year before Dean Martin's album came out.

that's a fun bit of trivia. thanks!

The movie was Some Came Running and it goes deeper since that movie is based off of a book. No idea if that line was in it or not.

Ill be sure to check it out! but out of curiosity: what makes it tough to read?

Just the writing itself. It's clear the author is a great thinker but the writing is a bit choppy in my opinion.

Ah that's unfortunate. Still, it'll be good to dig into when i get a chance.

Yes, it's still well worth reading.

Are you working on a game now? It'd be fun to see a prototype if you have something.

We are! though we have gotten busy recently so progress is slow. The prototype consists of about 200 index cards, some folded and cut to different sizes. all scribbled on with necessary information and edits

Sounds great! It's such a fun stage of the process.

I've just got Rules of Play from the library. Since I just started reading, I can't talk about its quality, but it's been mentioned several times on Ludology, so there's that.

Great! I'll check it out. what is Ludology?

I'd say it's the best podcast out there: http://ludology.net/

You should definitely check it out, especially since you're interested in game design.

great! always looking for new podcasts to fill the space with!