The encyclopedia offers a comprehensive collection of game mechanisms, meticulously categorized for easy reference. Each entry provides insights into various design elements, making it an invaluable resource for tabletop game designers. By exploring a wide range of mechanisms, readers can discover innovative ideas and enhance their creative process, whether they are beginners or experienced creators. This book serves as both a guide and inspiration for developing engaging and unique tabletop games.
How game designers can use the psychological phenomenon of loss aversion to shape player experience. Getting something makes you feel good, and losing something makes you feel bad. But losing something makes you feel worse than getting the same thing makes you feel good. So finding $10 is a thrill; losing $10 is a tragedy. On an “intensity of feeling” scale, loss is more intense than gain. This is the core psychological concept of loss aversion, and in this book game creator Geoffrey Engelstein explains, with examples from both tabletop and video games, how it can be a tool in game design. Loss aversion is a profound aspect of human psychology, and directly relevant to game design; it is a tool the game designer can use to elicit particular emotions in players. Engelstein connects the psychology of loss aversion to a range of phenomena related to games, exploring, for example, the endowment effect—why, when an object is ours, it gains value over an equivalent object that is not ours—as seen in the Weighted Companion Cube in the game Portal; the framing of gains and losses to manipulate player emotions; Deal or No Deal’s use of the utility theory; and regret and competence as motivations, seen in the context of legacy games. Finally, Engelstein examines the approach to loss aversion in three games by Uwe Rosenberg, charting the designer’s increasing mastery.
"If you shuffle a deck of cards, what are the odds that sequence is unique? What is the connection between dice, platonic solids and Newton's theory of gravity? What is more random: a dice tower or a random number generator? Can you actually employ a strategy for a game as basic as Rock-Paper-Scissorsl? These are all questions that are thrown up in games and life. Games involve chance, choice, competition, innovation, randomness, memory, stand-offs and paradoxes - aspects that designers manipulate to make a game interesting, fun and addictive, and players try to master for enjoyment and to win. But they also provide a fascinating way for us to explore our world; to understand how our minds tick, our numbers add up, and our laws of physics work. This is a book that tackles the big questions of life through the little questions of games. With short chapters on everything from memory games to subjective bias, to the Prisoner's Dilemma, to Goedel's theorems, GameTek is fascinating reading for anyone who wants to explore the world from a new perspective - and a must-read book for serious designers and players." -- Page 4 of cover
The book addresses the growing interest in tabletop game design, particularly among first-time designers and self-publishers. It offers essential insights and practical guidance on the intricacies of creating engaging games, catering to the increasing demand for knowledge in this creative field.
