Books
Challenges for Game Designers. "Oh, I'd like to teach game design but my students have no programming experience." My co-author and I heard this statement multiple times and we were both, like, seriously? Since when did you need computers to do game design? Chess has no lines of code. Backgammon has no polygons. Inventing a new Poker game does not require C++. We'd been making non-digital prototypes for years, as have most practicing game designers, so programming (or lack thereof) should never be an obstacle to learning how to design a game. Strangely, no books at the time seemed to acknowledge this, so we wrote our own. You can find it on Amazon here (link opens a new window).
Events
Global Game Jam. I like game jams, events where people work alone or in teams to create games in a short period of time (typically over a weekend). I organize game jams whenever I get the chance. Together with Susan Gold and Gorm Lai, I co-founded the Global Game Jam, the largest game jam event ever. If you've never made a game before, there is no better way than to dive in head-first and just do it. The official Global Game Jam site is here.
Game Balance Concepts. Since the previous course worked so well, I did it again in Summer 2010 on a design interest of mine, game balance. As with the original course, the site is still available with an intro video and ten written lessons that go as deep into the subject as I possibly could in ten weeks.
