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.

作為視頻遊戲行業的一位從軍26載的老兵，Brenda Brathwaite既是一位遊戲設計師，也是沙瓦那藝術與設計學院交互設計與遊戲開發係的係主任。她曾參與過22個世界知名遊戲項目，包括獲奬的角色扮演遊戲——《巫術》係列及戰略角色扮演遊戲——《鐵血聯盟》係列。Brenda是國際遊戲開發者協會（International Game Developers Association）的理事，而且是一位熱誠的反審查提倡者。她經常在大學裏和會議上演講，根據Ernest Adams在2007年為《Next Generation》雜誌所撰寫的文章，Brathwaite是當今在視頻遊戲開發領域持續服務時間最長的女性。她是《Sex in Video Games》的作者。

Ian Schreiber已入行8年，最初是個程序員，而後成為遊戲設計師。他參與過5個遊戲的開發，包括《Playboy:the Mansion》和任天堂DS版的《Marvel Trading Card Game》等。他還為兩傢《財富》500強公司開發過培訓/模擬遊戲。Ian在俄亥俄大學、哥倫比亞州立社區學院和沙瓦那藝術與設計學院教授遊戲設計與開發課程。