Things We Think About Games: Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball Justify Themselves

Gameplaywright founders Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball have put together an amazing little book about gaming called Things We Think About Games. Hindmarch, a White Wolf game developer, says, "Some people have called the book "Zen-like," or described the individual entries as koans. We called them "things," but wish now that we had called them koans, because who doesn't want to be mistaken for a guru in their field?" Each page contains a different thought about gaming. Some are one-liners. Others are paragraph length. Every last one of these thoughts has been carefully chosen from a wide range of contributors that include John August, Pat Harrigan, Fred Hicks, Kenneth Hite, John Kovalic, Michelle Nephew, Philip Reed, S. John Ross, Mike Selinker, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Will Wheaton contributes an introduction.

Exclusively for Amazon, Hindmarch and Tidball submitted this equally pithy and useful list of reasons why you should pick up their book. If you have a gamer in your family, I'd highly recommend this unusual, sometimes humorous, always provocative "look at the frontier of game design and creation."

1 - The book is easy and satisfying to dip into. Read it on the train, standing in line, in the bathroom, at the bus stop, while waiting for something to download, or while other players are agonizing over their next move in whatever board game you're playing tonight. Or mix it up: You can read it while standing in line for the bathroom or waiting for something to download at the bus stop.

2- The book is a serious look at the frontier of game design and creation without being dry or uptight about it. (Tidball wanted to say "Wild West of game design," but I wasn't sure if we could get away with that.) So it's like the frontier doc with the little round spectacles, the droll wonderment, and a mixture of back-east training with survivalist ingenuity. Steady hands, good for sewing up a shootist after a gunfight. Also, the whole book doesn't strain a single metaphor as much as this one bullet point does, so that's good. Point is: Serious thought on the subject of games, minimal academic bull.

3- Reading the book is like having a dialogue (or a spat) with someone who takes gaming halfway seriously. If you don't have someone to gab about games with, you'll feel like you do. If you do have someone to gab about games with, you'll have more to say to them after you read this book. The book was designed to spur discussion and spark talk. Our Things were formatted in a way that could be easily imitated for rebuttals and counterpoints. It's not a professor, it's a provocateur.

4 - If you don't like the notion on page 47, another one will be along in a minute. A lot of talented game designers and critics lent their voices to this book, so it's got a nice, broad outlook. Some of these contributors are bona fide famous people even outside of the gaming scene, but they're all great writers. Some write screenplays, some write comics, some are essayists, but they all think seriously about games. We think more people should. You may not agree with one entry or another, but that's the point. If you disagree, we think you'll find it easier to put your disagreement into words after you read this. And you'll have something specific to disagree with, which can be nice.

5 - It seems to work. A copy of the book was circulated at a popular game convention this summer by designer/critic Rob Donoghue, who encouraged people to write their reactions to various Things right on the page. He treated like a yearbook for the convention. How great is that? We're compiling those reactions for the website so the discussion can keep moving beyond the book. But if you want to know what people are reacting to, you need to read the book.

Comments

[Free Flash Games on December 16, 2008 at 12:15 PM]

well this is incredible stuff. I simply love it.

[Free Flash Games on December 17, 2008 at 11:32 PM]

well it seems to work? huh?