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Triadic Game Design

Balancing Reality, Meaning and Play

  • Book
  • © 2011

Overview

  • Introduces a design philosophy called "Triadic Game Design' which encompasses the reality, meaning and play of games
  • Analyses the three different perspectives of game design; the game, the pedagogical and real aspects of designing a serious game
  • Offers information on how to design a game
  • An easy to read book, it is accessible to all levels
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

Many designers, policy makers, teachers, and other practitioners are beginning to understand the usefulness of using digital games beyond entertainment. Games have been developed for teaching, recruiting and to collect data to improve search engines. This book examines the fundamentals of designing any game with a serious purpose and provides a way of thinking on how to design one successfully.

The reader will be introduced to a design philosophy called “Triadic Game Design.”; a theory that all games involve three worlds: the worlds of Reality, Meaning, and Play. Each world is affiliated with aspects. A balance needs to be found within and between the three worlds. Such a balance is difficult to achieve, during the design many tensions will arise, forcing designers to make trade-offs. To deal with these tensions and to ensure that the right decisions are made to create a harmonic game, a frame of reference is needed. This is what Triadic Game Design offers.

Reviews

From the reviews:

“The book provides a wealth of references from serious games, their entertainment counterparts, and the author’s own game, along with detailed discussions about issues pertaining to the triumvirate of worlds found in TGD. The appendixes offer instructions and resources for a workshop format, which can be used to convey the principles of TGD to developers or potential clients. … Summing Up: Recommended. All levels of game design students, researchers/faculty, and professionals/practitioners.” (A. Chen, Choice, Vol. 48 (11), August, 2011)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Fac. Technology, Policy & Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

    Casper Harteveld

About the author

Casper Harteveld’s disciplinary background includes: organization science, social and cognitive psychology, and gaming. His scientific expertise covers the design and use of serious games, human-computer interaction and sensemaking. Casper Harteveld’s areas of application include the application of games in soil engineering, and virtual worlds such as Second Life and Active Worlds.

Casper Harteveld holds an MSc in Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management, a BSc in Psychology, and a BSc in Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management.

Casper Harteveld’s professional experience includes working as a game designer on the game Levee Patroller, independently working on a cross-cultural assessment tool at the Capacity Development department for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and working as a research and teaching assistant at the Delft University of Technology.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Triadic Game Design

  • Book Subtitle: Balancing Reality, Meaning and Play

  • Authors: Casper Harteveld

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-157-8

  • Publisher: Springer London

  • eBook Packages: Computer Science, Computer Science (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag London Limited 2011

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-84996-156-1Published: 03 March 2011

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4471-5923-0Published: 28 November 2014

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-84996-157-8Published: 26 February 2011

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 316

  • Topics: Simulation and Modeling, Computers and Education, Media Design

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