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Unboxed

Unboxed

Board Game Experience and Design

by Gordon Calleja

$30.00 Paperback
eBook

312 pp., 6 x 9 in, 33 b&w illus.

Paperback
9780262543958
Published: October 4, 2022
Publisher: The MIT Press

$30.00

eBook
9780262370271
Published: October 4, 2022
Publisher: The MIT Press

$29.99

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An in-depth exploration of the experience of playing board games and how game designers shape that experience.

In Unboxed, Gordon Calleja explores the experience of playing board games and how game designers shape that experience. Calleja examines key aspects of board game experience—the nature of play, attention, rules, sociality, imagination, narrative, materiality, and immersion—to offer a theory of board game experience and a model for understanding game involvement that is relevant to the analysis, criticism, and design of board games. Drawing on interviews with thirty-two leading board game designers and critics, Calleja—himself a board game designer—provides the set of conceptual tools that board game design has thus far lacked.

After considering different conceptions of play, Calleja discusses the nature and role of attention and goes on to outline the key forms of involvement that make up the board game playing experience. In subsequent chapters, Calleja explores each of these forms of involvement, considering both the experience itself and the design considerations that bring it into being. Calleja brings this analysis together in a chapter that maps how these forms of involvement come together in the moment of gameplay, and how their combination shapes the flow of player affect. By tracing the processes through which players experience these moments of rule-mediated, imagination-fueled sociality, Calleja helps us understand the richness of the gameplay experience packed into the humble board game box.

Gordon Calleja is Associate Professor of Game Studies at the University of Malta's Institute of Digital Games, which he founded in 2012, and the author of In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation (MIT Press). A game designer at Mighty Boards, a board game design studio, he has designed and published Will Love Tear Us Apart?, a videogame adaptation of the Joy Division song, and several board games, including Posthuman Saga and Excavation Earth.

"Unboxed is a wonder! Calleja moves seamlessly from the philosophy of games and the human experience to nuts and bolts practical advice for designers."
Geoff Engelstein, Adjunct Professor, NYU Game Center, and author of Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design

“Calleja showcases the voices of dozens of world-class board game creators who each share their perspectives about what makes for a truly magical board game experience. Unboxed gives you the tools to think about board games like a true connoisseur.”
Jesse Schell, author of The Art of Game Design, Distinguished Professor of Entertainment Technology, Carnegie Mellon University

“Unboxed is a must-have for everyone who designs and studies board games. Packed with designer interviews and written in a precise, funny, moving voice, this emotion-centered book is nothing short of brilliant.”
Richard Lemarchand, Associate Professor, USC Games and author of A Playful Production Process

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Board Game Experience and Design

Unboxed

Board Game Experience and Design

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