Game design books

This is one of a series of reading lists I put together between 2002 and 2004 when I was starting out in interaction and experience design. This one is on game design, a discipline with a lot to teach interaction designers about engagement, feedback and the design of systems people come back to.
Salen & Zimmerman’s Rules of Play is the canonical theoretical text; it did for game design what Bordwell & Thompson did for film. Steven Poole’s Trigger Happy is a cultural rather than technical take, and one of the better-written books on games. Lucien King’s Game On was the Barbican’s 2002 exhibition catalogue, still a useful visual and historical overview. The rest are practical manuals from the pre-indie era of game development.
The Amazon links below are what I had at the time, most will be dead now, but the ISBNs will find you a copy.

Rules of Play : Game Design Fundamentals

Katie Salen, Eric Zimmerman.
amazon.co.uk / amazon.com

Game Design

Bob Bates.
amazon.co.uk / amazon.com

Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design

Andrew Rollings, Ernest Adams.
amazon.co.uk / amazon.com

Game Architecture and Design

Andrew Rollings, Dave Morris.
amazon.co.uk / amazon.com

Game On

Lucien King.
amazon.co.uk / amazon.com

RE:Play

Liz Faber.
amazon.co.uk / amazon.com

Electronic Plastic

Jaro Gielens, Robert Klanten.
amazon.co.uk / amazon.com

Trigger Happy

Steven Poole.
amazon.co.uk / amazon.com