Introductions

[Liz England]

Hey all, feel free to introduce yourselves to the group!

I'll start - I'm Liz, a designer at Insomniac Games. I've been in games for 7-8 years (Scribblenauts and Sunset Overdrive are the big ones) - some people know me from those, others from small horror games I make on the side, and others because of my blog.

I've been doing a side project where I read through books on game design and related disciplines (here: http://www.lizengland.com/blog/game-design-library/) and writing reviews of them. A couple weeks ago, someone said I should start up a book club so here we are. My reading interests are pretty much "everything", mostly because some of my favorite books were on topics I didn't think I'd enjoy.

I'm kinda curious what our breakdown is between game designers and everyone else, in or outside the industry.

[Ethan Redd]

Hey everybody! I'm Ethan, an independent designer/developer currently in Buffalo, NY. I'm pretty new to the scene, working on my first couple "real" releases now. My main interest is fast-pased, intense, mechanical/system-oriented games -- mostly bright stuff that looks like it was made in the 90s. You can see some of my stuff at my site ethanredd.com

I actually don't get to read much for pleasure so this seemed like a great way to find new interesting stuff to read and meet some cool peeps along the way ^-^)b

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Game Design Book Club" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to game-design-book...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to game-desig...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/game-design-book-club/744258af-6b84-4cdf-9974-14202e6ec29b%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Joe Köller]

Hey all,

I'm Joe and I'm mostly a critic (I'm actually in the process of starting a similar group for games crit discussion if anybody is interested in that), although I've recently moved from fiddling with Twine to going through some Unity tutorials and now my goal for the rest of the year is to make some game-shaped thing.

Also I have a bunch of game-related books lying around that I meant to get to, so this is great.

[Miodrag Kovacevic]

Hello! I'm Miodrag, game designer at Eipix Entertainment in Serbia. I've been a game designer for little over a year now, started off as designer for Hidden Object games and am now responsible for the company's Free-to-play titles. I've been involved in the industry since 2008 as a reviewer for local magazines and some smaller sites, then community/pr management in Nordeus and now game design at Eipix.

I also do hobby writing and have self-published the Ring of Void on Amazon. As far as reading goes, I try to keep my tastes varied. I haven't gotten the chance to read too much lately due to various obligations, so I'm hoping this group helps me get back to it proper.

My contact info is on my site if anyone ever wants to poke me or see some other stuff I'm working on: www.mdkii.com

[Duncan Keller]

Hi all,

My name is Duncan, I'm a programmer at Human Head Studios in Madison WI, I've been here a little over a year. I don't do any design professionally, but outside of work I have interests in art, music and game design. Doing Ludum Dare has been one way for me to try and expand my design knowledge, and this group seems like another great way. Looking forward to it! :)

[Raul Aliaga]

Hello everyone, I'm Raul Aliaga. I started as a designer but then moved on to production, mostly motivated by my experience in which good design struggles to happen in an environment in which bad decisions have been made from the start from a business/production/technical point of view.

I'm from Chile, started working there and then I spent a year working in Argentina, then back to Chile and now I work and live in the Netherlands. My work is increasingly far away from design but I think I still approach my work with the mindset of a designer -just on different contexts. I'm looking forward to the discussions of this group to keep growing my design side, to contribute with the stuff I have read and to learn more for the side projects I aim to do one day.

Cheers!

[Robert Utter]

I'm Robert (or @areyoutoo), previously a programmer for Bust-N-Rush and Spin Fight at Techtonic Games in California, now back in academia after Techtonic folded. Aside from my day job, I've recently done some work with smaller companies like Theia Interactive and Area88P.

I've done a lot of work in Unity, some in Unreal, and dabbled in WebGL. You may recognize me from Unity Answers, Stack Overflow, or some other dev forums.

I am mainly a programmer, but on small teams I wind up wearing more hats, so I find it helpful to understand the whole pipeline. :)

[Cameron Lonsdale]

Hi everyone, I'm Cameron. I'm a Computer Science Uni student in Sydney, Australia, who is passionate about Game development.
I've had some experience developing games before and hope to continue to do so.
I started reading Games related books at the start of the year and have really enjoyed them but found no one to discuss them with.
I'm really looking forward to discussing these books and learning with/from you all :)

[Liz Threlfo]

Hey there!

I'm (also) Liz a game designer and developer based in Sydney Australia. After studying, I had a stint at a startup studio where I worked as a game designer. I have since been working solo to improve and broaden my skill set. One Game A Month has proved massively motivating to me and I have participated every month since it's inception.  

With a new job taking up all my dev time, I wanted to find something to keep my head in the game when I can't be sitting and prototyping. This group should do nicely!

[Jeffool]

Hi folks,

I'm Jeff Bridges, "Jeffool" on various social networks, and no relation to The Dude, sadly.

I'm not a developer, but a player. I've worked in webdev for a small company for less than a year, and have a longer history in journalism, producing local TV newscasts.

I actually attended Full Sail in 2003 planning to go into gamedev, but ended up doubling down on journalism instead. But that's never stopped me from taking a great interest in games and design, reading several books, many articles/blogs, and every couple of years even firing up a compiler or tool to mess around as a hobbyist.

I'll invariably feel out-classed here, but I'm a curious person, and I can't turn down a great opportunity to get good reading recommendations and knowledgeable insight into a topic I'm interested in.

[Leo Burke]

Hey, my name is Leo, currently a QA person at Popcap, but I also did design stuff for Deer Hunter 2014 at Glu. 

I also made a few games here and there: http://www.unicodeunicorn.com/

[Regina Supapo]

Hi all, I'm Xiao. I hail from the Philippines and I'm a game designer at a local studio here, mostly handling mobile. I'm also in the academe, teaching game design part time.

I like design books in general (not just game design) and books on games. I also just started to get on those. I started with Don Norman's Design of Everyday Things and Jane McGonigal's Reality is Broken. I have other books in my archive that need to be revisited as well hehe, have quite a backlog on the books (not just the games).

[Chris Palu]

I'm Chris -- originally from Australia, but now based in LA as a designer at Riot Games.  I've been in the industry for a bit over 12 years, and while I've learned a lot both in the trenches and from other developers, I attribute the bulk of my early game design education to sources I pursued outside of the industry.  A lot of that was via books, so I'm looking forward to discovering more through this club, as well as discuss some old favorites.

Cheers

[Dominic Maggiolo]

Hi all, I'm Dominic (@tchrdom)! 

I'm an elementary school teacher in Vancouver, BC. I am also a graduate student at the University of British Columbia. I'm increasingly interested in researching games and learning, cyber culture, play, as well as collaboration in 3D environments. Unlike most of you I am not a game designer. However, I am curious about the link and similarities educators and game designers have.

On a personal level, I'm learning Python and build games using Twine.  I hope to learn a bunch from all of you!

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 12:51:50 PM UTC-7, Liz England wrote:

[David Mikula]

Hello all, I'm David, a Technical Designer at Canadian mobile studio Big Blue Bubble. Currently our big title is My Singing Monsters, and we've also worked on games for Disney Interactive (My Muppets Show) and Lego (Ninjago: Rise of the Snakes). 

I've been reading as much as possible about game design recently and I'm hoping this book club will expose me to titles I haven't read and provide some interesting conversation. 

Twitter: @dmikula

LinkedIn: dmikula

[Zach A]

I'm Zach ( @icepotato ). I'm in Seattle. I work in software, but I do games crit on the side at my blog, my gimmick tumblr about Games and Food, and I'm deputy curator over at Critical Distance.

last time I was in a book club it was for Umberto Eco books! I do a ton of reading on my own so I'm happy to have a place to discuss it.  

[Austin Harman]

Hi, I'm Austin (aka PeculiarCarrot). I'm actually still in high school, but I have a passion for game development and design. Most of my free time is spent programming games. I've never actually finished a game that wasn't from a game jam (I get distracted by ideas way too easily), but my current project is something I actually plan to finish. Sometimes I'll take a break from programming and read something or do some animating. I'm a very optimistic person (Though sarcastic; Sorry in advance.) and I hope to have some interesting discussions with everyone!

[Chloe Cameron]

I'm Chloe (@clotoro), nice to meet you all! My design experience is entirely with tabletop roleplaying games, but I'm looking to expand my knowledge and maybe start designing video games of my own sometime soon.

[GrantSnyd3r]

Hey guys, sorry for the delay in answering - been super busy with finals week and such. Sounds like we have quite a diverse group so far! 

As for myself, my name is Grant, and I will be graduating from Columbia College Chicago in a week (Yay!) with a major in Game Design & Development and a minor in creative writing. I'm currently a Game Design Fellow at Game Changer Chicago, but will be moving to a new job this summer where I will be acting as a traveling instructor at iD Tech Camps teaching middle school and high school aged youth about game development tools and process.

As for what I'm looking to get out of this group - I'm looking to continue my education in design and be inspired by its many different areas and kind of discuss how those areas can be applied to game design specifically. Other than that, just looking forward to some great discussions with lots of different opinions! 

 

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 2:51:50 PM UTC-5, Liz England wrote:

[James Holder]

Hello, everyone. I'm James, the lead software developer over at TheSquareFoot in New York. I've worked in software for years, but have only dabbled in game development so far, so I look forward to ramping things up alongside you all.

If you're looking for someone proficient in Ruby or JavaScript, give me a shout. I've also worked in Python, Java, and C#.

[Nick Lalone]

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 3:51:50 PM UTC-4, Liz England wrote:

Hey all, feel free to introduce yourselves to the group!

Hi all, 

My name is Nick LaLone. I am a director of a game design program at Bellevue University as well as a PhD Student in Information Sciences and Technology. I'm currently working for NASA on a variety of projects surrounding the Aurora Borealis and Australis as well as Space Weather / Heliophyisics. When not busy, I am working on my dissertation proposal which I hope to defend this fall. I joined because i'm super excited to read some books for fun! 

My dissertation involves an attempt to evaluate the impact of the philosophical foundation of computer science as a manifestation of mathematics. 

Finally, the program I direct was sunset about a year ago. However, the remaining students are getting a bachelors in digital design and they are just now starting to get into a stride in Unity so I have shown them this book club as it will cover a lot of books and content my classes would not. 

Looking forward to reading with you all!  

Nick

Nick

[Clarence Pratt]

Hello All,

My name is Clarence Pratt.  I'm currently a student in the Game Design/ Game Studies program at Bellevue University.  I'm hoping to make a career in game design.  I have done some pretty decent work in Blender and now I'm dipping into Unity and the Unreal Engine.  My Professor Nick Lalone informed the class of this book club, so I'm here to learn what I can.  If anyone have any questions or comment please feel free to drop a message.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 2:51:50 PM UTC-5, Liz England wrote:

[William Terlop III]

Hey everyone,

I'm William Terlop, I'm a game design student at Bellevue University. I am currently a student of Nick Lalone. I'm currently working on a few projects for my classes. I enjoy making and designing both video games and physical board games. I'm always looking to learn new things so I thought this would be an awesome place to learn. Thank you for allowing me to join.

[Berrak Nil Boya]

 Hello everyone!

 My name is Berrak, I'm currently working as a freelance sound designer and composer in games, also heavily interested in integration, implementation and more technical side of things as well. My roots are in classical music(formal music training in the conservatory etc.) and musicology (undergrad and grad). Did a lot of research on sound and music of video games as well as movies and other visual media from a music psychology/music perception perspective mostly. Working as a teacher/lecturer right now as well, but not teaching game audio yet, hope to start that next year:)

  As a book worm, I'm so happy to find this group via twitter since it will be a wonderful opportunity to read about all things related to games and to have great conversations about it with all of you.

  Wishing you all a great day!

  B.

[Adam McGivern]

Hey there folks, how's everyone feeling?

I'm Adam, a 20 year old (soon to be 4th year) Honours bachelors student in C.S. from Dublin, Ireland.

I was never much of a techie as a kid, so what actually dictated my choice in choosing the field was(outside the booming industry in my home city) games! I've always been an avid gamer. One of the main reasons for this was just the awe of something that a team- or even one person- has made using a computer and a few tools.

Anyway, while my choice of course is fairly programming-heavy,  my experience with actual GameDev is... spotty at best. I've messed with Unity some and I've checked out some Virtual Academy directx courses, but nothing you would call "a game" and though my Institute does offer a module for game design, it's not until the next semester or so.

 Hopefully, with the books, discussion and summer free time I'll be having, I might just be able to manipulate a sphere by August!

TL;DR: I'll be the newbie giving the newbie point of view opinions, don't hate me!

Adam

[Dan Sanderson]

Hi all -

I'm Dan (@dan_sanderson), I've been a software engineer for over 17 years doing almost exclusively web stuff, with an interest in UX and working on multi-disciplinary teams. I love game design and game tech but I'm keeping it as a hobby for now. Glad to see such a wide range of experience on this list.

-- Dan

[Verena Riedl]

Hey everybody,

I am just getting around to introduce myself now, sorry about that!

My name is Verena and I am a producer, game designer and doing marketing for games. I started getting involved with gams around 2 years, switching over from advertising and marketing and I am extremely happy to have made that move. Since then I am trying to read and learn as much about game design as possible, so I am extremely happy about this book club (thanks Liz!)

I just got out of my last position as a mobile producer for Apps and now working freelance for the next months, cooperating with different studios, while also working on my own projects.

Looking forward to great discussions!

Best greets from Austria,

Verena

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Game Design Book Club" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to game-design-book...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to game-desig...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/game-design-book-club/db4e07f8-f5f5-4b11-a6a7-0d98cb90021f%40googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Lee Beever]

Hi All,

I'm a game development lecturer at the University of Chester in the UK. I'm really looking forward to get involved in some lively discussions of the books we'll be reading. I'll hopefully be able to encourage some of my students to join in as well. You can find me on twitter under @beever.

[Brian Davis]

Hello everybody.

I'm Brian Davis, Currently a Lead designer at Wooga in Berlin. (FarmVille, CityVille, and Tiny Monsters are my most popular) I've been in design for 7-8 years but I got my start in games as a tester for a few Game Boy Advance titles at Pronto Games.

Though my professional work is mostly in social/mobile games I consider myself primarily a systems design specialist and I'm currently I'm writing a book on game balancing.

I also build mandolins.

[Drew Murray]

I'm Drew Murray (@PlaidKnuckles). I'm a game director at Insomniac Games, where I work with Liz.

I've been at Insomniac for almost 10 years (anniversary is July 11!). I started as a junior designer on Resistance: Fall of Man, then worked on Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction, Resistance 2, Resistance 3, and most recently was game director on Sunset Overdrive. And now, as usual, I'm working on a project that I can't talk about. :P

I have a huge stack of books related to design / game design / etc., some of which I've read and all of which I want to - hoping this group provides some peer-pressure to read more of them!

[Allan Baumer]

Hi Everyone!

I'm Allan (@YouKnowA_Allan). I'm an interaction designer at an antivirus and security software company. I've done my share of UX research and design. But, I really want to shift gears and do game design. That's why I'm here. To learn and listen and get better.

[Jolie Menzel]

Hey folks! Suppose an intro is better late than never. 

I'm Jolie (@joliemenzel),  a Level Designer at Ubisoft in the tiny SF dev team. I started in games about 4 years ago at Telltale, where I was on the Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, and the first episode of Tales from the Borderlands before I left for Ubi. I live in North Bay and get to ride a ferry to work everyday - its a nice commute, but a good book makes it all the better :) Look forward to reading with you guys!

[Christian Selbrede]

Hello! I'm Christian (@cselbrede). I used to be a tools programmer at TimeGate Studios here in the Houston area until they closed up shop. Now I write business software during the day, and on the side I run an independent game studio, which is still in its infancy. And composed primarily of a single developer / designer at the moment, me. Growth is in the works. 

Game design fascinates me. I took a MITx course on game design a few months back, and found the lively discussions to be the best part of that class. And so I'm greatly looking forward to participating in what Liz has put together here. Thanks for the all effort in organizing it! I can't wait to dive in.

[David Mullich]

Hello!  I'm David.  I teach game design and production and the Los Angeles Film School.  I've been in the game industry for 36 years now, getting my start when computers when just entering the homes.  I designed/programmed The Prisoner at Edu-Ware, produced Wilderness: The Survival Adventure for Electric Transit, produced DuckTales for Disney, designed/produced I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream at Cyberdreams, directed Heroes of Might & Magic III at The 3DO Company, produced Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines for Activison, and produced a lot of children's games and websites for Spin Master, Disney and Mattel.  Oh, and I am also co-creator of the Boy Scouts' Game Design Merit Badge.

I don't do nearly enough reading, so I hope that this group will get me in a good habit!

[Hunter Wright]

Hey guys, I'm Hunter, a designer at Gearbox software. I've been here since 2009, and have worked on Borderlands, Brothers in Arms, Aliens, and now Battleborn. I was previously a programmer at UPS, but decided to go to the guildhall after I got tired of writing database applications. 

I've been looking at the book recommendation thread and there are a lot of books on there that i already own and keep meaning to read, but never seem to get around to. Hopefully this group will give me an incentive to finally go through them.

[Michael Elbert]

Hey hey,

I'm Michael, @derElbi, Austrian, currently living in Berlin, Germany, working at Wooga on mobile games.

Got an MSc in Computer Science, then spent the next 3.5 years as a programmer on various unreleased titles, mostly on prototyping and gameplay. I always felt more attached to game design than code though, and just last week got an offer to switch departments and join the design team. Obviously I accepted gladly. Now let's see how this goes!

In my spare time I inhale everything "-game". Tabletop RP, board, card, PC, console, mobile, handheld. That might also be one of the reasons why I keep putting my own projects on ice...

Regarding books, I've read a few from the list, skimmed others, and kept postponing even more. However, all of that happened through the lens of someone who isn't primarily a game designer, so I'm pretty sure I could and should re-read almost everything!

[Chris Pavia]

Hello all!

I'm Chris, in the past I've worked as a General 3D Artist at Farsight Studios, Santa Cruz Games, and as a Game Designer at Namco Networks here in sunny (and dry) San Jose CA. Currently during the day I am a Senior User Experience Designer for a company called Next Issue Media, and by night I make indie games as a designer / artist / programmer. My most recently released game is called Dungeon Hearts, currently available on Steam and iPad. 

I am a "systems-first" designer who enjoys procedural generation, mixing together genres in interesting ways, and solid game feel.

[Adrian Forest]

HI all,

Finally realised this morning Google Groups had set this group to "No E-mail" on joining, so this is a very belated introduction!

I'm Adrian, I teach video game design at JMC Academy in Brisbane, Australia, at least until today, because I start teaching the same things at SAE Institute on Monday. Before last year I was researching video game spaces as a postgrad student for about 6 or 7 years. Although teaching has made me more of a generalist, my interests are primarily around space and place in video games, so I'm very much into related areas like architecture, urban planning, etc.

I've recently been doing a whole lot of reading to develop new Game Studies and Game Design courses that I now won't be teaching! So having read a lot of directly game-related things recently, it'd be nice to venture further afield for a bit.

[Rosendo Tapia]

Hello everyone

I'm not a professional game designer but I've been interested in the craft for quite some time, like many around here I've been infatuated by games since childhood. So far I've read a fair amount of game related books, so being able to discuss them is certainly an enticing proposition. Hope to see you around.

Rosendo

[Steve Guardiola]

Hey All, Steve here, from Puerto Rico,(moving to the states in about 6 months), im a University of Phoenix student, BA in Software Engineer.  Although i have read some books on game design, i haven't really dedicated all my energy in reading them from page 1 to end, or done any exercises from them, so hopefully i get motivated here to share opinions and learn from yours.  I have no experience in creating games, although i been trying for quite some time to get into it, so i have mostly watched game dev videos, interviews and play allot of games.  Found your website while reading an article about "The door problem".

[anotak]

Hi,
I'm Thomas Kilgore, usually known online as "anotak". I'm currently a university student. As a hobby, I'm a designer and a programmer. I may want to make this my job in the future, I am still undecided on that.
As far as released projects go, me and Zeipher (who is an artist+designer) worked on 2 games for game jams: http://www.sf4remix.com/games-we-made/
Our larger project we've been working on for 5 years now is a mod for Ultra Street Fighter 4 called sf4remix, also available at that site. It's still in progress but is very close to finishing, and you can download public releases. I had to help write tools to do the editing, reverse engineering file formats and whatnot. Though it isn't a full game, we've worked a great deal on it, poured our hearts and souls into it.
I've been programming since I was 10 years old, and I've been interested in game design as long as I can remember. I've had far too many incomplete game projects for my own good, but I've finally started to understand how to finish things. My favorite book on design is "The Art of Game Design" by Jesse Schell. My perspective also comes from being a competitive fighting game player, I've been playing in tournaments for almost 7 years now.

[Clarice Meadows]

Hi all,

Whups! Another not receiving updates over here, thus super late reply and voting and all that. 

I'm Clarice, a self-guided student of games for the past few years. I worked in games for almost 9 years in the more business side of things, handling launches of triple-A titles. But, my goal was always to dive into the guts of game making rather than the selling of games, so here I am! I've made a couple small things in Twine for online magazines, and have dabbled in a few other game creating programs. This seems like a good place to step away from the software side of things and read some of the books on my to-read list that poke at every other aspect of game creation.

Hello!

-Clarice

[jurie.h...@gmail.com]

Hello everyone.

My name is Jurie Horneman, I've worked as a game designer, producer, and programmer. Currently I'm mostly doing free-lance programming, because I like working from home and remote game design or production is difficult.

I most recently did some programming on Sunset.

J.

[Mat Gdowski]

Howdy everyone!

First off I wanted to say that it is a pleasure meeting all of you.  I got a chance to read all of the posts and it seems like we have a mix of all types of sources here, which is cool to me.

Secondly, I wanted to say thank you very much to Liz for starting this as I am looking forward to the reading and learning of information from everyone here.

My name is Mat and I am an IT junkie.  LOL!  I've been working around/with/on computers for about 30 years now (yes, I'm an old fart at 43), however, most of it was software and hardware.  I have done some programming (Basic, COBOL, PASCAL, C+, Python), but it has been a while.  I keep wanting to go into the IT field further, but not sure what I wanted to do until fairly recently.  I game some, but admittedly not a lot.  I'm really interested in them, but haven't played them that much because I feel I'm terrible at them.  LOL!

Anyway, I finally am getting my act together and I currently attend Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) for their Interactive Media (gaming) concentration in Computer Science (BS).  I recently attended UNLV (University of Nevada-Las Vegas) and UK (University of Kentucky), but they didn't have any type of gaming concentration with their programs, so EKU is where I'm at in the Fall of 2015.  

Sorry, this is so long, but I am looking forward to reading the books on the list (I haven't read any as of yet) and getting to know a lot more about game design and the nuisances of that field as well.  Any info / mentor-ship would be appreciated.  ;-)  As a side note, I do actually work as an IT Systems Admin for an auto auction and I am a professional photographer ( South Bay Photography - @SouthBayPhoto ) when I'm not working full time or going to school full time.  

Again, great to meet everyone and I'm looking forward to the reading and discussions!  :)

Mat G.

[Marius Holstad]

I’m Marius, recent game design graduate from Teesside University, UK. I’m originally from a small town in Norway, but moved to the UK to work in the games industry. So I’m currently working on a project here.

I’ve always been interested in character interaction in video games and I’m working hard to create games which present some sort of social challenges or social play with NPCs. I’m looking forward to improving the design of these interactions by reading books with you guys and gals :)

[Matthew Holland]

Hi all,

I'm Matthew, I'm a senior game designer (or thereabouts) at Jagex in Cambridge, England, where I've had various design roles over the last ~7 years, including design team leader and interim monetisation manager for RuneScape.

Besides lots of playing games and an inevitable backlog of side projects, I write science fiction and fantasy.

Matthew Holland

@QuixoticEvil

[Michael Vance]

Hello everyone,

My name is Mike and I'm a programmer analyst by trade and a hobbiest game designer. Currently trying to work on some game design projects on the side with some friends, and perhaps look at one day changing roles and getting into the games industry full time. I am always glad to have people to talk to about games design, and having some more books on the subject will be awesome

[Randy Greenback]

Hi to everyone! I'm late to post and it seems I need to ensure updates/reminders are turned on...

My name is Randy Greenback (@Randygbk), I've been in the game industry for over 20 years, focused mostly in Design, but I dabble in all things dev. I got my start at Westwood Studios and have done stints at EA, Ubi, and Insomniac Games. Currently I'm Executive Producer at Gun Media, working with Devolver on Breach & Clear: Deadline and directing Summer Camp which is the first title in an asymmetrical multiplayer horror series that's based on 80's slasher films. I collect retro games & systems and play around with VR as a hobby. Big thanks to Liz for putting this book club together! This should be lots of fun.

[Joe Kinglake]

Hi all,

I'm Joe, a game designer over at Guerrilla Games in Amsterdam. I've been working here for 3 years on the recently announced Horizon: Zero Dawn. Before that I was studying Computer Games Design at University Campus Suffolk.

Alongside my professional work, I also work on a number of personal projects in Unity & Flash. I've joined the group because I'm super interested in reading more and discussing the literature of and around the design of games.

@JoeKinglake

[Karstein Røsnes Ersdal]

Hey everyone!

I'm Karstein, a game designer/producer/CEO hybrid, and I have released 4 mobile games in that role.

I have a B.Tech(IT) with game design, which means I've read a lot of literature on and related to game design and I find it really interesting and useful.

 I tend to be a bit of a lurker, but I'll contribute to the discussion where I can :) I'm also on twitter @karsteinre

[Christoffer Lundberg]

Hello, my name is Christoffer and I am from Sweden. For the moment I'm a student at a System Science program in Luleå. Its like a softer version of computer science; with development methods, documentation, UML/diagrams, along with programming. I have also read a mixture of courses like philosophy, psychology and architecture. I have made some smaller game projects the past six months (https://ushallplay.wordpress.com/ (will hopefully get some update in a near future)).

At the moment I'm mostly interested in level design, but really: anything goes!

I have read some game design books earlier, but are unsure of how much of it have stayed and look forward of discussing the content. I would also be interested in having Skype-like discussions at the end of the book. I have been in a club where we discussed philosophy irl, but never seemed to find people to discuss game design deeper.

Writing or speaking, there seem to be plenty of people interested in game design here :)

[Ramine Darabiha]

Hey everyone,

My name is Ramine. I got in the industry by setting up gaming sites such as Gamershell and Gamikaze and doing various homebrew efforts. I've been involved in developing the startup community in the Northern European region (via Startup Sauna and Summer of Startups), ran a cloud computing startup called Mysites for 5 years, where we developed 20 cloud based services and our own web OS. I then joined Rovio and became the head of R&D there, where my team developed new products and technologies. I worked on the whole Angry Birds series and Bad Piggies. I then became Chief Product Officer at Halfbrick, where I worked with the teams behind Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride, Age of Zombies, Monster Dash, Colossatron, Radical Rappelling and Bears vs Art (and some cancelled projects). Right now, I'm working with Yahtzee (from Zero Punctuation) on a procedural horror game called The Consuming Shadow.

I'm really keen to exchange ideas with the group here! For the past few years, I've been training to become a better game designer. I've got a background in product design and liveops, but I've been learning to make things fun and juicy.

@ShokuninPM on Twitter.

[Amor Estandian]

I'm Amor, a designer at Pipeworks Studio. I've been in games for 5 years (I've worked on a number of small games). A book club around game design sounds great, so here I am. I'm excited! I'm looking forward to all the discussions we'll have. 

[Kyle Umbenhower]

Hey all,

My name is Kyle and I'm a designer at Gearbox Software, where I work with Hunter Wright. I'm currently working on Battleborn and I've been at Gearbox for about 3.5 year now. Looking forward to discussing game design and continuing to grow as a designer!

-Kyle

[Jeremy Craig]

Hello everyone! I'm Jeremy ( @blanksparrow ), a student in little old New Zealand and I'm currently studying Computer Science. 

Previously I had been a freelance designer studying fine arts but as soon as I made one of my drawings jump around the screen, I got hooked on learning the code side of things.

[Megan Vokal]

Hey! I'm Megan, a designer with a programming background from Lincoln, NE. I've been working on a first-person exploration game where you play as a dog for the past two years, as well as several small projects, but after trying and not liking the whole indie/freelance thing I'm doing that stuff on the side while seeking employment at a bigger studio. I'm excited to learn and grow as a designer through this book club!

(Also, I'm on twitter @meganvokal)

[Craig Pitcock]

Hello,

 My name is Craig, I am currently studying to become a game designer. Although I am going to school for game design, I don't consider myself a designer yet. There are a lot of things I feel I need to learn, and ideas on certain things I need to do on my own to set myself apart from my classmates. I look forward reading and sharing what I've come up with. I have a wide range of reading interests, I am currently reading The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell ( A book assigned to read this month [Nov 2015} in class) Thank you for reading my Introduction. 

Kind Regards,

Craig Pitcock ( @EmperiorPenguin )

[Avinash MADDI]

Hey Everybody,
I am Avinash , Game Designer currently in India. I've been a game designer for 2years* and currently working on Free-to-play mobile-tablet games and VR experiences, i also make experimental games on the side.
I am so happy to see a group like this exists where we can talk about design theory in deep and meaningful way, lets work hard and have fun.

BTW: I don't want to mix up GD and LD topics , can we have a Level Design book club ?

[Kevin Day]

Figured I would introduce myself now, thanks for allowing me to join the group! My name is Kevin and I currently work in the IT industry. I have been playing games for a long time, but after discovering the likes of Liz and other designers, have been trying to figure out what exactly it is I like and dislike in games as opposed to just consuming them. I am hoping to expand my vocabulary and understanding of games to better explain my thoughts on them. I am looking forward to reading and dissecting various topics with you guys!

[Steven Lumpkin]

Hey y'all!  

I'm Steven, a game designer in Montreal.  I've been in the industry for 9 years, a designer for the last 6- starting with encounter design (The Secret World), then level design (Eternal Crusade), then some game design now (RollerCoaster Tycoon World).  I'm also a sometimes-streamer and I play a bunch of tabletop RPGs on stream, which is a ton of fun and a great outlet for faster-cycle creativity.

Happy to be here!  Very excited to start tearing through some design books and deepening my design knowledge along with you all.

[Adam Moore]

Hey there everyone, my name is Adam Moore and I'm an indie developer in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm a designer, programmer, and producer (I wear a lot of hats). 

I also work full-time in the education department at the University of Advancing Technology. My official title is Quality Assurance Technician but I assure the quality of educational experiences instead of software, so my work looks quite a bit different from what you would normally expect from someone with this title in game or software development.

[Matthew LeHew]

Hi everyone, I'm Matthew and I'm happy to be here!

I have little to no experience in game development. I'm a PhD student studying social health in online community interactions, and a game studies class challenged me to make a game of my own - an iOS endless runner featuring my corgi that will be released in the next couple of weeks.

I've had such a blast learning the (very) basics of game development and coding that I want to continue the hobby. I'm looking forward to stumbling through future projects, and I can't wait to enjoy these texts and discuss them with you all.

[Erik Elgerot]

Hi everybody! (Hi Dr Nick!) I'm Erik and I just recently joined here.

I'm a QA Tester for Paradox Interactive with about three years'
experience, working towards QA Specialist focusing on narrative
testing and having worked on titles such as Crusader Kings 2, Pillars
of Eternity, Cities Skylines and the Knights of Pen and Paper series.
I'm also a hobby game developer on the side, mainly writing, design
and code, and always interested in learning more. My reading interests
tend towards genre fiction, as well as an ever-growing library of
non-fiction on game development, writing, cinematography and art.

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Game Design Book Club" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to game-design-book...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to game-desig...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/game-design-book-club/dc747619-e66d-426d-b378-6688aac1145e%40googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Esteban Cascante]

Hello guys! 
My name is Esteban Cascante, I'm from Costa Rica and I'm a software engineer. 
I'm trying to read more about different topics that could help me as a software developer, but also to develop a game in the future, which is my main goal.

I chose my major because I wanted to develop because videogames since I was a child, but at this moment, two years since I finished my major, I haven't develop anything related to the area (In my country is kind of hard to find game development companies).

So I feel this is a great opportunity not just to learn a lot about design in general, but also to do some networking and hear from people inside the industry and try to absorb their knowledge. And I also feel that with that constant contact of designers and developers, I could finally focus on a project, take an idea and develop it until I could publish something interesting.
I'm on Twitter as  @BanjoCascante, I mainly publish in spanish, but we can discuss anything you guys want. So I hope we could in the future talk a lot about games and design :D
Nice to meet you all!

[da...@madmunkigames.com]

Salutations :)

My name is Dave Dow, I've been working in games for quite a while,
initially as an artist and later as a designer. At a stretch I may
even be able to claim programming experience too, so long as none of
my programmer colleagues are within earshot :) Out of all the games
work I've done Level Design is my favorite, especially on narrative
based games, the last substantial contract job I did was exactly that,
on Pixelhero's' Eisenhorn (http://store.steampowered.com/app/373920/)
- due out fairly soonish.

Shamefully I only really started to look into writing/lectures etc on
game design in the recent past. I arrived at this google group as a
result of following @lizardengland having been linked to their awesome
'The Door Problem' blogpost
(http://www.lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/) which I
always take pleasure on passing on to other designers and folks
interested in the industry.

I'm on twitter personally as @tartanmonkey23 (though only really
resuscitated this account last week) and as my (tiny) company
@madmunkid.

Look forwards to chatting game design with you all :)

Dave

[Carlos Medrano Lopez]

Hello everyone, 

My name Carlos Medrano. I'm currently a financial software developer but for a long time my real passion has been to make games, Sadly for many economic and other reasons I´ve never got the chance to make one of my own (Mainly just some programming for other games). All I've done is write a whole bunch of ideas down during the years. But now I've started my very first game about a year ago and I´m head on to make this my full time job. I'm really excited to get to know all of you and your opinions on these books and topics. 

My twitter user is @ChuckzM in case you want to see anything I'm currently working on.

[JJ Bakken]

hey hey hey

i'm jj bakken. game designer by trade but i'm working in production now. started designing professionally in mobile games about six years ago and now i'm at Wargaming.net. I also teach introduction to game design at depaul university in Chicago. 

real excited to talk about some game design texts. books rule

[Sarah Cole]

Hallo!

Thanks for letting me join. I'm Sarah and my day job is doing digital stuff with cultural heritage stuff—a delibrately vague description to cover all manner of nonsense from digitising film archives to making apps.

I've been playing games for as long as I can recall but have only been dabbling in the making for the last year since I got on the fantastic MakePlayCode course. I've worked on a few small projects in my spare time and at game jams but I'm really interested in how different aspects of games work and particularly narrative-led design. 

Looking forward to reading lots of books with you guys! I'm on the Twitters @irny. 

:)

--

[Gabby Taylor]

Hi everyone, I hope you're doing well! 

I'm Gabby, a freelance designer, artist, and writer. I've been working with people from various countries to create games since 2010, writing about games and game development since 2014, and just recently started advocating for disabled game developers like myself.

My taste in books is just about everything from academic to fantasy; currently, I'm on the Chinese novella series Dream of the Red Chamber and before that was The DOs: Osteopathic Medicine in America. I've always enjoyed reading about design and development too, with an emphasis on understanding the how's and why's of immersion and what makes the mind tick.

I'm very excited to join you all in this, and for what are undoubtedly interesting discussions!

[Reign Naw]

Hey everyone!

I've been lurking for a bit only because I get the abridged messages on the bus in the morning and totally forget to send the intro email EVERY SINGLE DAY. Sorry!

Which is a great segue into, hi! I'm a Canadian! I'm a narrative designer at Eidos Montreal, currently working on getting Deus Ex: Mankind Divided out the door. I've been in the industry for a decade, previously working at Gameloft in Montreal, on titles (and multiple sequels) like Dungeon Hunter, Modern Combat, and CSI.

I love reading interesting industry books and am looking forward to what's next!

You can catch me on Twitter @And_Rayna

[Aaron Grossman]

Hello,

I'm Aaron, and my actual work is as a BI Developer outside the game industry. I enjoy learning and considering all the challenges folks go through in creating a game, from the deeply technical to the business side. I thought joining here might be a good way to find more reading material beyond sites like Gamasutra and the GDC Vault. 

I have a hobby project that I tinker with from time to time, although I struggle with building a solid picture in my mind of how it should look. I'd love to roleplay a person of influence in Strategy games like Civilization or Paradox Interactive titles, rather than being the guiding force of the nation. Even an absolute dictator can't execute every command themselves, and all those folks being influenced have their own agendas. Crusader Kings 2, especially with some of the latest DLC, is approaching this idea, but it's still not quite there for me. 

[Thomas Newlands]

Hi all!
I'm Thomas Newlands and I'm going into my third year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I'm looking to find intersections in my studies between art education and games. I'm also more generally interested in developing and discussing experimental videogames that prod at the way they are defined. I'm currently on a semester off and learning to write c# for unity and hammer down my 3d work. I'm hoping to find some good reading and good pals around here.

Im on Twitter as @thnewlands and have my work up over on www.thnewlands.com !

Looking forward to meeting / chatting with you all!!

[John Lethbridge]

Hullo all,

My name's John and I'm a designer at Ubisoft Toronto, presently doing level design. Prior to that (and fairly recently) I was a technical designer at Blue Isle Studios on Valley (releasing this summer!) - and way back I was a design intern at Bedlam on Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale.

I spend a fair bit of my free time concepting and designing games - many of which never get made, but have an interesting spin or appeal all the same. I work on my own small side projects fairly often. In addition to design I do pixel art, programming (various languages) and writing. Occasionally, I dabble in terrible 3D modelling.

Games is actually my second career - my first was 15 years at the wheel in IT as a systems admin. Of course in that time I was always designing and programming games. In fact when I finished school the dot com had just crashed so I took a job in a book shop where I discovered a whole host of game development books. I bought and read many of them, though at the time I was put off by programming work involved (this well pre-dates Unity and the friendly modern tools we have today!). Over time I came around and taught myself not only programming, but many of the skills needed to make games.

Outside of games, I spend most of my time raising three busy young kids (7, 3 and 21 months) - the oldest of whom has taken a keen interest in making small games in Scratch. In fact, I was recently invited in and taught his grade 1 class a lesson in Scratch (spoiler: they all did great!).

Recently I've read the Bossfight books on Spelunky (highly recommended), Baldur's Gate 2 and Shadow of the Colossus. I'm presently working my way though Game AI Pro 2 and The Art of Game Design in turns.

I can often be found blathering on about random things - game related and not - on twitter (@TheVMan_).

Cheers!