Book review of The Rules We Break by Eric Zimmerman

Is the twenty first century “an epoch in which games and play are the model for how we interact with culture and each other”? Designer and professor Eric Zimmerman thinks so. At the very least, video games can present an awfully helpful method to study by doing. In The Rules We Break: Lessons in Play, Thinking, and Design, Zimmerman gathers an array of video games—ones that may be performed on tabletops, playgrounds and even on-line—designed to encourage versatile and artistic considering, facilitate collaboration and enhance communication.

Games are “a kind of miniature laboratory,” Zimmerman writes. Constraints at all times present a fertile surroundings for creativity, of course, however generally the training comes from devising the sport itself. For instance, one train asks teams to prototype video games with a couple of discovered objects in quarter-hour. Fellow teams then play each other’s video games. Zimmerman gives reflection and dialogue factors for all video games, so it’s clear what we stand to achieve from taking part in—whether or not within the classroom, boardroom, household room or office.