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Steve Swink, a game designer at Flashbang Studios behind breakout indie titles like Raptor Safari and Jetpack Brontosaurus, lays out a unique vision in Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation. The sensation that Swink is describing is not the thematic or emotional feel of a particular genre or plot. It’s the impulse that makes you lean forward when Mario makes a leap of faith. It’s the rush of defeating a difficult boss. It’s the reason some games are tight and exciting, while others are sluggish or confusing.

Approaching the subject as a blend of art and psychology, Swink splits the text into sections that identify the concept of game feel, define metrics to quantify both the hard numbers and subjective impressions of evaluating it, and finally apply that model to a handful of case studies picked from the lineage of brilliant game design.

Swink states in his introduction that his book is intended for a broad spectrum of readers, including both faculty and students of game design. In this effort he mostly succeeds, approaching some complex problems without delving too deeply into technical minutia. At worst, he occasionally repeats himself to drive a concept home. His detailing of input devices can be skipped by anyone familiar with basic electronics, but remains helpful as much of the later analysis requires a firm grasp of analog user input.

The greatest strength of Swink’s treatise on design is that it fills a gap between traditional discussions on aesthetics and usability: the former rarely touches on the practical problems of interactivity, while the latter usually aspires to a perfect and effortless model that overlooks the thrill of challenge and progression. Citing a classic philosophy that games should be easy to learn but difficult to master, Game Feel pursues the ideal of intuitive controls and captivating feedback that lead to the sweet spot of gameplay known as flow.

Game Feel is available at Amazon, get it.