<P style="MARGIN: 0px">Since the first arcade videogames appeared in the 1970s, publishers have invested billions of dollars in developing more powerful technologies to deliver richer player experiences. Games have often taken a central role in popular culture; in fact, organizations are even attempting to “gamify” traditional business processes. However, our language for understanding, discussing, and designing games has remained primitive — and this has made it more difficult to create great games or intelligently evaluate them.</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px"> </P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px"> <I> <B> <I>A Game Design Vocabulary</I> </B> </I>fills this gap, offering a complete shared framework for understanding and evaluating game design — as creators, as players, as students, as game industry decision-makers. Anna Anthropy approaches games through the lens of storytelling and vocabulary, examining the structure of a game, identifying its verbs, adverbs, objects, and showing how game designers develop these elements over the course of a game.</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px"> </P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">Anthropy uses extensive examples to illuminate abstract concepts in game design. In multiple case studies, she dissects samples from existing games. Every chapter concludes with hands-on design challenges and learning exercises that promote deeper insight — and can be done with or without access to any game development technologies. </P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px"> </P> <P style="MARGIN: 0px">Coverage includes:</P> <UL> <LI> <DIV style="MARGIN: 0px">Verbs and objects, the fundamental game characters</DIV> </LI> <LI> <DIV style="MARGIN: 0px">Scenes, which we use to develop those characters</DIV> </LI> <LI> <DIV style="MARGIN: 0px">Context, using video and audio to communicate game rules</DIV> </LI> <LI> <DIV style="MARGIN: 0px">Resistance, our ability to reward or to waste the player's time</DIV> </LI> <LI> <DIV style="MARGIN: 0px">Designing games holistically, rather than as a collection of parts</DIV> </LI> <LI> <DIV style="MARGIN: 0px">Chapters will end with design challenges and exercise.</DIV> </LI> <LI>There will be additional materials for instructors including, interactive examples, test questions, and group project ideas. </LI> </UL>