ETC suggested reading list:
Books
• Everything Bad is Good for You - Stephen Johnson (general interest - covers modern media, complexity and interactivity)
• Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art - Scott McCloud (general interest - covers the medium of comics but has broad applicability)
• A Theory of Fun for Game Design - Raph Koster (for budding(刚入门的） game designers)
• The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals - Chris McChesney, SeanCovey, Jim Huling (business book, good for anyone, esp. producers - has a very game-like approach)
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell
• Start with Why - Simon Sinek
• For artist/animators or programmers interested in VFX, I recommend Elemental Magic Vol 1 and 2.
- Joseph Gill and They are by an old school Disney animator and recommended to me multiple times by various people in the industry.
• For Programmers Effective C++ - Scott Meyers is an absolutely must read no matter what language you like to use since it actually teaches code maturity which you can normally only get in the workplace.
• CIRQUE DU SOLEIL ® THE SPARK: Igniting（触发） the Creative Fire that Lives Within Us All, - John U. Bacon
• Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making the Magic - Disney Book Group
• The Design of Everyday Things - Donald Norman
• The Martian（火星人）, - Andy Weir (Fiction, for interesting ways to solve problems)
• Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin A. Abbott
• Rise of the Video game Zinesters - Anna Anthropy
• Every Guest is a Hero, - Adam Berger
This book is awesome; it talks about the guest's journey as a Hero's journey as well as breaking down a lot of famous Disney attractions in terms of the guest's experience.
• The Participatory Museum, - Nina Simon Nina's great, I had the fortune to meet her at a workshop once and she has really interesting ideas on making museums more engaging and interactive (which doesn't always mean mini-games on touchscreens).
It's got great sections about interactivity and engagement. It's a great read especially for those who don't realize that museums are also location-based entertainment！
The book can be read online for free at:
http://www.participatorymuseum.org/ or a physical copy can be bought through Amazon.
• Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencioni
• Mastery - Robert Greene was recommended to me by Jesse and really helped me understand my trajectory（轨迹） and what I needed from the program.
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• Work rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How you Love and Lead - Lazlo Bock. It's an excellent discussion on Google's people philosophy, hiring, management, etc.
• Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama - David Mamet
• Difficult Conversations, - Stone, Patton, and Heen. Applies to anyone working on teams and offers great basics for navigating challenging conversations and avoiding pitfalls of communication breakdown.
• Hamlet on the Holodeck - Janet Murray It is talks about our ability to tell stories in an age of evolving technology.
• The Lean Startup - Eric Ries is worth a read, on the business and product development end of things.
• The Game Design Reader edited by Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen.
• Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste - Carl Wilson (A critical look at the 1997 Celine Dion album. What even is good taste?)
• Level Design: Concept, Theory, & Practice - Rudolf Kremers (excellent book on the philosophy of level design for any kind of game. most level design books focus on learning tools. good companion to Jesse's art of game design).
• Game Feel - Steve Swink (understanding physical and mental sensations of game mechanics).
• Vision and Art - Margaret S. Livingstone (observations in human visual perception and art phenomena explained quite thoughtfully)
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. - Daniel H. Pink This would be great for would-be producers.
• Vertex, all 3 issues: For artist looking to work in games.
• Game Engine Architecture 2nd Edition - Jason Gregory and And Mathmatics for Game
Programming
- Eric Lengyel They're both hard slogs to get through, but super, super useful for learning the architecture of modern 3D programming. Also anything that highlights Profiling would be super useful.
• On my shelf that I strongly recommend is The Experience Economy: Work is Theater & Every Business a Stage
– B. Joseph Pine II, James H. Gilmore (especially for LBE folks, but many benefit)
• On my to-read list recommended to me, for producer-types, is Sun Tzu - The Art of War for Managers: 50 Strategic Rules
– Gerald A Michaelson, Steven W Michaelson.
Recommended more than once:
• Ready Player One - Ernest Cline It had a compelling marketing campaign too, with ARG elements. The book itself is a fun story about VR MMO plus a great treasure hunt.
• Creativity, Inc. - Ed Catmull (for learning about managing creative endeavors and it's a fun book to read).
Books by ETC Alumni and Faculty: (At least those that I am aware!)
• Avant-garde Videogames - Brian Schrank (’05)
• Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C#
- Jeremy Gibson (’07)
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• The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Second Edition - Jesse Schell (ETC faculty)
• POWER PLAY: How Video Games Can Save the World - Asi Burak (05) and Laura Parker
Also, ETC Press. ETC Director Drew Davidson is the Editor-in-Chief for ETC Press, which is an academic, open source, multimedia, publishing imprint affiliated with the ETC and in partnership with Lulu.com. ETC Press can be considered a general overview of the field.
Non-book suggestions:
• Extra Credits on YouTube, written - ETC alum James Portnow
• MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc,
Robert Zubek- short paper about systems dynamics in game design)
• Game Maker's Toolkit - YouTube channel with very thoughtful analyses of game mechanics.
https://www.youtube.com/user/McBacon1337
• Not a book suggestion, but before you get to the ETC, take a game engine and make a small project with it; anything at all. I suggest Unity since it's what you'll use at the ETC. It will help you hit the ground running once you get started with BVW.
• Not something to read, but just a general note: "Start a blog BEFORE getting to the ETC."
Basically: make a blog now. Put something on it. Anything. Thoughts, hopes, aspirations. Then, EVERY TIME you make something in your first semester put it on there IMMEDIATELY. As crazy as it seems now, you will not have time to create a blog during BVW. You'll put it back to later and you'll end up having to find pieces of what you did six months later when you're looking for an internship. Create a blog TODAY. And put a couple of posts up on it before mid-August. It also may be a good idea to create a new blog so that people who are looking for you professionally are not distracted by posts about your personal life. (That last advice was given by a former ETC faculty member in my last semester.)
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