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''The Art of Computer Game Design'' by Chris Crawford is the first book page 4 devoted to the theory of
computer and video games ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') was a UK-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot website ...
. The book attempts to categorize computer games and talks about design precepts that serve as guidelines for game designers. It was originally published in
Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
by
McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...
/Osborne Media in 1984. The original edition became available as a free download from a site maintained by
Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant unive ...
, Pullman in 1997. In 2011 the free download was removed and the text is currently available as a Kindle
e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
.


Background

Crawford in 1981 and 1982 coauthored a series of technical articles in ''
BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
'' on developing games for the
Atari 8-bit The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...
computers. The articles were collected into ''
De Re Atari ''De Re Atari'' ("All About Atari"), subtitled "A Guide to Effective Programming," is a book written by Atari, Inc. employees in 1981 and published by the Atari Program Exchange in 1982 as an unbound, shrink-wrapped set of three-holed punched p ...
''. In December 1982 he published an article in ''BYTE'' on abstract aspects of game design, using ''
Legionnaire The French Foreign Legion (french: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army which comprises several specialties: infantry, Armoured Cavalry Arm, cavalry, Military engineering, engineers, Airborne forces, airborne troops. It was created ...
'' as example.


Reception

Calling the author "a master of computer game design", ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...
'' complimented Crawford using his own games as examples of success and failure, and recommended the book to both game designers and players.
Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...
was less favorable, writing in ''
Ahoy! ''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 198 ...
'' that "when one of the best computer game designers in the business writes a book about computer game design, you expect it to be wonderful ... And when 'The Art of Computer Game Design''turned out to be merely fascinating but often shallow and sometimes just plain wrong-headed, I was disappointed".


See also

* List of books about video games *
Chris Crawford on Game Design ''Chris Crawford on Game Design'' () is a book about computer and video game design by Chris Crawford. Although referred to as the second edition of '' The Art of Computer Game Design'', it is in fact a completely new book. It was published by Pe ...
, another book by Crawford


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Art of Computer Game Design, The 1984 non-fiction books Video game culture Books about video games Video game design McGraw-Hill books