January 22, 2013

The Soul of Design vs Interactive Storytelling for Video Games

The book I review now is "The Soul of Design: Harnessing the Power of Plot to Create Extraordinary Products," written by Lee Devin and Robert D. Austin.

It is a profound book, reflecting the two professors' wide and deep readings in literature and philosophy. I recommend this book to students of product design and user experience.



I am not going to summarize the whole book, which will take a lot of time. I am just sharing my own understanding of the core concepts of the book.
  1. Plot= "resonant coherence"
  2. Plot (as I understand it) = each part in its place + nothing extra and nothing lacking + wholeness + integration, or working together + a sense of progress towards a goal


You should compare this to another good book "Interactive Storytelling for Video Games"


 
 
I happen to read both books at the same time.  But that's not the reason that I put them side by side for review.

The second book too is profound, in its own charming way.  Just the last few paragraphs about "diversity" will give you enough encouragement to "focus on what you do best," instead of reading tea leaves as to which types of games or story or technology will dominate in the future. Do we hear echoes of  Fire And Motion by Joel Spolsky?

1 comment:

  1. Your definition of "plot" is crude but make more sense and easier to understand. Thanks a lot for sharing and ranting.

    ReplyDelete

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