Welcome to a book written to challenge you, improve your brainstorming abilities, and sharpen your game design skills! Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers is filled with enjoyable, interesting, and challenging exercises to help you become a better video game designer, whether you are a professional or aspire to be. Each chapter covers a different topic important to game designers, and was taken from actual industry experience. After a brief overview of the topic, there are five challenges that each take less than two hours and allow you to apply the material, explore the topic, and expand your knowledge in that area. Each chapter also includes 10 ?non-digital shorts? to further hone your skills. None of the challenges in the book require any programming or a computer, but many of the topics feature challenges that can be made into fully functioning games. The book is useful for professional designers, aspiring designers, and instructors who teach game design courses, and the challenges are great for both practice and homework assignments. The book can be worked through chapter by chapter, or you can skip around and do only the challenges that interest you. As with anything else, making great games takes practice and Challenges for Game Designers provides you with a collection of fun, thoughtprovoking, and of course, challenging activities that will help you hone vital skills and become the best game designer you can be.

作为视频游戏行业的一位从军26载的老兵，Brenda Brathwaite既是一位游戏设计师，也是沙瓦那艺术与设计学院交互设计与游戏开发系的系主任。她曾参与过22个世界知名游戏项目，包括获奖的角色扮演游戏——《巫术》系列及战略角色扮演游戏——《铁血联盟》系列。Brenda是国际游戏开发者协会（International Game Developers Association）的理事，而且是一位热诚的反审查提倡者。她经常在大学里和会议上演讲，根据Ernest Adams在2007年为《Next Generation》杂志所撰写的文章，Brathwaite是当今在视频游戏开发领域持续服务时间最长的女性。她是《Sex in Video Games》的作者。

Ian Schreiber已入行8年，最初是个程序员，而后成为游戏设计师。他参与过5个游戏的开发，包括《Playboy:the Mansion》和任天堂DS版的《Marvel Trading Card Game》等。他还为两家《财富》500强公司开发过培训/模拟游戏。Ian在俄亥俄大学、哥伦比亚州立社区学院和沙瓦那艺术与设计学院教授游戏设计与开发课程。