| It takes two to tango, but it takes three to design a "meaningful game." For "games with a purpose" to dance, three different worlds need to be balanced: the worlds of Reality, Meaning, and Play. In a nutshell, that is the message of this book. Simultaneously, it is the summary of my experience in designing a game for training professionals. Both aspects, the theory as well as the practice from which it derived from, are at the core of the following pages... |
The above is the introduction of a book called "Triadic Game Design: Balancing Reality, Meaning and Play." It is written by Casper Harteveld and published by Springer-Verlag London. It is about a design
philosophy for developing games with a serious purpose or meaningful
purpose if you like. Other terms for these games that try to achieve a
value beyond the game experience itself are serious games, sims,
simulation games, persuasive games, epistemic games, social impact games and so on.
The philosophy outlined in the book may help in understanding the design
process of these games and in creating better ones.
You can find more information about the book and supplementary material on this website.
For sample pages, visit the publisher's website.