Challenges Await

I've started reading Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber.  This book takes a hands-on approach to game design by teaching through assigned challenges that readers are expected to participate in.  A typical challenge includes designing a pen and paper game to some criteria, creating a playable prototype, playtesting, and then iterating on your design.

In 2009, Ian Schreiber, one of the books authors, hosted a ten-week online course about game design concepts to supplement and reinforce the content of the book he co-authored.  This course included bi-weekly blog posts by Ian, activities to do at home between the blog posts (typically additional readings or challenges pulled from the book), and a community of people reading the material and participating in the challenges together.  This community served as an invaluable source of feedback and encouragement.

In 2009, game development was far from my mind.  I didn't participate when this course was hosted live, but thankfully, Ian was kind enough to leave his hard work and that of his students online for all to learn from.

Next time you hear from me, I'll be elbow deep in design challenges.  I'll be posting my progress as I complete these assigned challenges.  Expect to see the results of the first one tomorrow.

You can find the blog where the course content is being hosted here.  Follow along!

Cheers,

Danny