I’ve mentioned the design book The Art of Game Design several times before. As an absolute novice designer, I bought the book to shore up my skills. Whenever I’m focusing on the gameplay, I’ll usually spend a few hours reading a new chapter, trying to absorb the information, and then apply the new concepts learned towards my design. This iterative process has already helped me several times to break out of mental blocks and generate new ideas.
Last week, I was going through a new chapter, and I kept getting sidetracked by the lenses. Within the book are interspersed 100 of these so-called “lenses” – brief sections which reinforce the current subject being discussed. By asking you open-ended questions, the lenses help you focus your mental energy on a particular aspect of your design. These exercises will usually lead you to new ideas and insights.
Anyways, I was actually finding these lenses quite distracting as they were causing me to pause my reading and go off on mental tangents. Not a bad thing in itself, but I wanted to finish the chapter first, then return to the lenses. It’s at this point that it struck me that I could really use the lenses as a standalone object. And luckily, Jesse Schell provides exactly that in the form of a Deck of Lenses.
I want to read the book once thoroughly, but then only return to it as a reference when I need a deeper analysis on a particular subject. Having the lenses in my hands would allow me to quickly focus on a particular aspect of the game. When I originally bought the book, I decided to forgo the cards as they seemed like an unnecessary extra expense. I know understand why they are provided.
Unfortunately, it’s a pain in the ass to order the lenses from Germany. You can only get them shipped from Amazon.com, which takes a couple weeks, and is expensive. Luckily, after contacting Mr. Schell’s company directly (they’re the ones who actually make and sell the cards), they generously offered to ship them free of charge immediately. The cards arrived yesterday, and they look fantastic, but more importantly, they will definitely serve their purposes.
So thanks again to Mr. Schell and his helpful staff. If this game ever finds success, it will be in no small part due to his book.
My new deck of lenses!
