Game Design

Maybe a little off track for "coding", but since last weekend I've been really enjoying learning a bit about the world of "game design."

• MIT Open Courseware CMS.608 / CMS.864 "Game Design" with Phillip B. Tan - am listening to lectures despite poor sound quality that reduces the contexts in which I can successfully follow. Currently on lecture 9 of 33. Would be fun to do all the related reading and exercises too... but no time.
• Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber - reading this because it is listed as a text for MIT OCW CMS 608. Tedious textbooky style, but interesting content.
• It's also mentioned in 4 Must-Have Books for Learning Game Designers by Jake Huhn
• Update, 11/22/2014: Finished reading it (though not doing the exercises.) Also subscribed to Gamasutra email list for ongoing taste of game industry talk.
• MIT Open Courseware related courses
• MIT Game Lab 
• I am severely tempted by, but don't think I have time for, edX MITx: 11.126x Introduction to Game Design, happening right now (Oct 22-Dec 3), again with Philip Tan... sigh. The archived lectures are all I can do, I think.
• Utopian Entrepreneur by Brenda Laurel (MIT Press) - I love this woman. She's my new bisexual superhero.
• Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, by Ryan Henson Creighton - my current "textbook", on the theory that it's useful to see things that can be done with code. Trying to actually do the exercises in this one, "get my hands dirty," instead of only reading. I love the humor of the author. And there is something inherently fun about Unity 3D.
• Twitter is emailing me interesting-looking things to "Follow", more than I can record here.
• Coursera "Video Games and Learning" Oct 3 - Nov 13, 2014, from U. of Wisconsin