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Topic: Chris Crawford (game designer)

	Books on Computer and Video Game Development - Online Game Development Book shop.
		Veteran game developer Tom Meigs covers the foundations of game design, including previsualization, level stubbing and layout, lighting, texturing, behavior scripting, and using particles, and explains in detail each stage of game development and design.
		Writing comprehensive design documents, accurately estimating tasks and schedules, setting up a comprehensive QA plan—these are all important aspects of the game development process that are often underplanned.
		Game company executive Erik Bethke provides a guidebook that discusses these issues, along with detailed coverage of development methods and project management techniques, all from the perspective of someone who has learned the hard way and is still learning.
	www.gamediscovery.com /development/menu/shop/main_shop.asp?shop_id=1 (2069 words)

	Chris Crawford (game designer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Laid off in the Atari collapse during the video game crash of 1983-1984, he went freelance and produced the innovative Balance of Power in 1985, which was both highly-regarded and a best-seller, reaching 250,000 units sold.
		The Game Developers Conference, which now draws over 10,000 attendees each year, began in 1987 as a series of salons held in Crawford's living room with his game design friends and associates.
		A Conversation with Chris Crawford in The Escapist webmagazine
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Chris_Crawford_(game_designer) (392 words)

	FreeTechBooks.com - The Art of Computer Game Design
		Crawford's permission to publish an electronic version of the text on the World Wide Web so that it would be available to her students and to others interested in game design.
		Chris Crawford, a game designer, wrote this text in the golden age of of arcade games.
		Game designers are no longer bound by the same hardware and software limits to build their wildest ideas.
	www.freetechbooks.com /post-434.html (490 words)

	Chris Crawford on Education of a Game Designer - Indiegamer Developer Discussion Boards
		His book on game design is quite a good one and I think it has been re-printed a few years ago (as "Chris Crawford on Game Design").
		Chris is a really smart guy and while I respect the fact that he made intelligent games for intelligent people, his titles didn't make money and publishers eventually lost interest.
		Design may be what makes the game fun but it won't get a punter to pull out their wallet.
	forums.indiegamer.com /showthread.php?t=4102 (2571 words)

	Amazon.ca: Chris Crawford on Game Design: Books: Chris Crawford (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Today's games are unquestionably more impressive than the games of 1982, but the advances we have seen aren't commensurate with the progress of the hardware or the budgets.
		Games today seem to be made in cookie-cutter fashion, and I was expecting something along the lines of how to make your game stand out from the rest of the similar ones in the market.
		Crawford details a series of rules that designers should follow, and a list of books that they should read so as to better inform programmers as to what a greater section of the public would want.
	www.amazon.ca /Chris-Crawford-Game-Design/dp/0131460994 (2056 words)

	Chris Crawford
		hese days, Chris Crawford is less known for the games he has authored than for his presence in the industry as the pointed voice of reason.
		Chris is the founder of the Journal of Computer Game Design, the Computer Game Developers' Conference, and is the author of several books, including The Art of Computer Game Design.
		She saw an ad: "Programmers: design your own games." I answered the ad; it was a headhunter who, after interviewing me, decided to reject me. I protested that I already had done several computer games that I could show him, but he dismissed me because I didn't have three years of programming experience.
	www.dadgum.com /halcyon/BOOK/CRAWFORD.HTM (1634 words)

	Gamasutra - Features - "Power Balancing: An Interview With Chris Crawford"
		His often savage criticism of what games have become, plus his continued experimental work on interactive storytelling with the Erasmatron, have established him as a somewhat controversial game designer.
		Crawford recently wrote a thought-provoking book, The Art Of Interactive Design (No Starch Press, 2002), and also plans a return to game development with a new version of Balance Of Power.
		Trust And Betrayal [a late-'80s Crawford game, where you rose to power on an an alien planet by manipulating the trust of influential people] is another title of yours that seems to have been undervalued and somewhat buried over the years.
	www.gamasutra.com /features/20030605/carless_01.shtml (1072 words)

	Chris Crawford on Game Design - GameDev.Net Discussion Forums
		Chris Taylor was the lead designer of Total Annihilation and producer (?) on Dungeon Siege.
		I happen to have bought Chris Crawford on Game Design (had a gift certificate to a crappy bookstore, was the only thing even remotely interesting there).
		Chris Crawford did NOT design Total Annihilation and Dungeon Siege; he worked at Atari, and then as a freelance designer programmer.
	www.gamedev.net /community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=205879 (1823 words)

	Game designer Chris Crawford gets his grump on - Joystiq
		Anybody who was around during the gaming crash calling the video game industry of today, "without innovation and dead" should just be patted on the head given a little ball to chase around and left alone in their little white room.
		Crawford's point is simply that games don't really engage the higher emotions and affections of human beings yet in a meaningful, non-scripted - interactive - way.
		The designer could either send them on a course that, but for the player's intervention, would only have one outcome, or he could even create free-form worlds in which players are left to make their own way.
	www.joystiq.com /2006/06/14/game-designer-chris-crawford-gets-his-grump-on (3177 words)

	Chris Crawford Interview on Game Design
		Game design is not a specialized form of programming.
		Of the game designer's we've interviewed, we have identified three approaches to starting a project - develop a scenario, follow a game-genre heritage, or start from a technological premise.
		Games have settled down to their steady state in much the same way that comics have settled down.
	www.theswapmeet.com /articles/crawford.html (1532 words)

	GameDev.net - Chris Crawford on Game Design, Chapter 21: Balance of Power
		The game took shape during the fall and winter of 1984; by early 1985, it had reached an early alpha stage.
		Chris Crawford is the "grand old man" of computing game design.
		Chris has lectured on game design at conferences and universities all over the world.
	www.gamedev.net /reference/articles/article1957.asp (5110 words)

	O'Reilly -- Safari Books Online - 0131460994 - Chris Crawford on Game Design
		It's written by one of the greatest game designers of all time, who is also the number one computer game theorist in the world, yet it neither teaches the craft of game design nor does it contain any great theoretical breakthroughs.
		Among other things, Crawford exorcises many of the buzzwords that haunt the dialogue of game design, presenting principles that are so much cleaner and more accurate than we've come to expect from game design books.
		He contends that "fun" is not a sufficient design goal for a game, indeed, that it's hardly a design goal at all, and presents what served as his goals on his many game projects.
	safari.oreilly.com /0131460994 (1656 words)

	Troy Gilbert » Chris Crawford on Game Design
		While he strongly encourages designers to move outside of established genres, and bemoans our industry’s insistence on relying on tried-and-true genres, he invaribly falls back on his strengths as a strategy game designer when presenting new game ideas.
		This game very clearly demonstrates the fundamental elements of interactive design as outlined in Chris’ other excellent tome, The Art of Interactive Design: verbs and nouns.
		To get to my point: while Chris does provide some much needed critical analysis of game design as a true, valuable pursuit, he unfortunately does not give many current games any benefit of the doubt.
	troygilbert.com /2004/04/28/chris-crawford-on-game-design (528 words)

	What is a Puzzle?
		Game designer and philosopher Bernard Dekoven wrote a wonderful book about this subject called "The Well Played Game" (now out of print).
		I prefer a finer-grained definition that I first heard from Chris Crawford, veteran game designer and founder of the Game Developers Conference.
		One of the main challenges for me as a game designer is to find ways to introduce some of the thrill of competition back into puzzle games.
	www.scottkim.com /thinkinggames/whatisapuzzle/index.html (1473 words)

	Game Developers Conference - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Originally called the Computer Game Developers Conference, the first conference was organized in 1987 by Chris Crawford in his San Jose, California-area living room.
		Crawford continued to give the conference keynote address for the first several years of the conference, including the famous "whip" speech in the early 1990s where he punctuated a point about game tuning and player involvement by cracking a bullwhip perilously close to the front row of the audience.
		Crawford also founded The Journal of Computer Game Design in 1987 in parallel to beginning the GDC, and served as publisher and editor of the academic-style journal through 1996.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Game_Developers_Conference (556 words)

	Amazon.ca: Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling: Books: Chris Crawford (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Within the context of interactive storytelling, Chris explores ways of providing conflict and challenge, the difference between low- and high-interactivity designs, the necessity to move beyond purely visual thinking (so that the player is engaged on multiple levels), and more.
		Crawford conveys in this publication is invaluable to any writer seeking to break into new areas-particularly gaming and other applications utilizing interactive storytelling.
		Crawford's extensive experience in the gaming industry, he very capable gives aspiring writers every tool he or she will need to get a very good start in the industry.
	www.amazon.ca /Chris-Crawford-Interactive-Storytelling/dp/0321278909 (960 words)

	Chris Crawford on Game Design review
		If you are a game designer, then you must have this book, and read it from time to time.
		Apparently game designers still haven't learned the fact that play is fun, but too much accuracy of the real world is not.
		I believe it was a design philosophy that lets the player learn the game as they play and to hold the attention of the player quickly.
	home.earthlink.net /~ramstrong/review/chris1.html (7617 words)

	The Escapist - A Conversation with Chris Crawford
		The Escapist - A Conversation with Chris Crawford
		The man known as the Dean of American Game Design toils alone, unfunded and underappreciated, in a forest in Oregon.
		He has renounced games; or perhaps, one might say, games have renounced him.
	www.escapistmagazine.com /issue/12/4 (216 words)

	Windows XP: The Seven Games of Highly Effective People (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Game designers are particularly good at making the player aware of all a game's objectives, which are typically a combination of short term ("I want to defeat this creature, or solve this puzzle"); medium term ("I want to complete this level"); and long term ("I want to beat this game") ends.
		Today's games for Windows encourage this through their "moddable" (modifiable) architectures, which allow and encourage enormous amounts of player creation and invention, a feature not available on game consoles.
		Game players continually experiment, create, and come together in ways that the game designers did not anticipate.
	www.microsoft.com /windowsxp/using/games/learnmore/7games.mspx (1169 words)

	Amazon.com: Chris Crawford on Game Design: Books: Chris Crawford (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Of course, the other design books I've read all suffer from this flaw of putting a bit too much stock in old games and forgetting that with modern games, the devil really is in the details.
		He'll tell you you'll never make it, he'll tell you good design is essential in the success of a game project, and laugh at projects that failed due to (he claims) bad game design.
		Chris Crawford has a reputation in the game industry for being a bit of a nut.
	www.amazon.com /Chris-Crawford-Game-Design/dp/0131460994 (2209 words)

	"Chris Crawford On Game Design" - AtariAge Forums
		Although it included alot of the information on his website http://www.erasmatazz.com/index.html, it was nice to read it all in one place.
		Chris Crawford is the designer and developer of Wizards for the Atari 2600 and several programs for the Atari 8-bits including Eastern Front, Scram and Energy Czar.
		He also designed two pc strat games that were pretty good.
	www.atariage.com /forums/index.php?showtopic=41503 (388 words)

	Joris Dormans - game lecturer · scholar · designer - Book Reviews
		Again he discusses online games from the perspective of economy and public policy, which is a welcome change from the majority of game-literature usually focusses on technology, design and the art of games.
		Games are not forms of art, but forms of entertainment aimed at a large audience.
		American games from the seventies featured blocky and often abstract game elements, a stark contrast to the character driven titles with which Japanese companies conquered the United States in the early eighties.
	www.jorisdormans.nl /books.php (2330 words)

	Chris Crawford (game designer) - Cleverpedia, the ultimate encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Chris Crawford began 1979 a career as professional play developers, first with Atari.
		Its computer game Tanktics was the first commercially available computer strategy play.
		it published 1982 with The kind OF computer Game Design a book concerning the development of computer games, which contained also a draft of a classification system for computer games.
	cleverpedia.com /Chris_Crawford_(game_designer) (164 words)

	Amazon.co.uk: Chris Crawford on Game Design: Books: Chris Crawford (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Chris Crawford on Game Design is all about the foundational skills behind the design and architecture of a game.
		A problem with a lot of the younger gamedeveloppers is that in their designs they refer mostly to other games they play.
		A lot of his insights of the older games ("the classics") are also usefull for the newest games though.
	www.amazon.co.uk /Chris-Crawford-Game-Design/dp/0131460994 (949 words)

	MobyGames - Chris Crawford (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Two of my games were published in 1990, Guns and Butter (about macroeconomics) and Balance of the Planet, a game about environmental problems.
		I have lectured on game design in eight countries and many universities.
		Erasmatazz -- Chris Crawford's homepage, including links to his articles on game design and his simulations for the Macintosh.
	www.mobygames.com /developer/sheet/view/developerId,744 (517 words)

	Gamasutra - Feature: Q&A With Veteran Designer Chris Crawford
		Illinois Agrees To Pay $520,000 In Game Bill Legal Fees [12.20.06] Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's administration has now agreed to pay the $520,000 in attorney’s fees and interest resulting from the ESA and others' fight against the state's successfully blocked game law by late January.
		Gamasutra's Quantum Leap Awards: Most Important Games, 2006 [12.20.06] You voted, we listened, and with the combined effort of Gamasutra's staff and its esteemed readership of games industry professionals, scholars and educators, we're proud to present our Quantum Leap Awards for the most important games of 2006.
		In today's exclusive Gamasutra feature, veteran game designer, professor, author, and Game Developers Conference founder Chris Crawford discusses his uniquely grim view of game innovation, his industry predictions, and the latest developments in his long-term interactive storytelling project, Storytron.
	www.gamasutra.com /php-bin/news_index.php?story=9694 (487 words)

	Dr. Dobb's \| Interactive Storytelling \| September 6, 2006
		Chris Crawford thinks so—and he's bet his Oregon farm on it.
		Chris Crawford wrote his first computer game in 1976 on an IBM 1120.
		In the late '80s Chris began writing increasingly creative and imaginative games, pushing the art, moving it toward something like a true art form.
	www.ddj.com /dept/ai/192503697 (444 words)

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