LitRPG is one of my favorite genres in fantasy. If you don’t know, LitRPG is a subgenre of fantasy (or sci-fi) literature that combines elements of traditional fantasy with video game elements, such as RPG-style character development, leveling, and questing. It’s a great genre for me as I love video games and fantasy. However, it’s also interesting and useful to read from the game designer’s point of view. Yes, as a game designer, you may often have “facepalm” moments when some game mechanics in books are so unbalanced or just wouldn’t work in real games. However, the way that the characters interact with and manipulate these game systems can also offer inspiration for game designers. Especially when authors often put their characters in impossible situations for the plot, such as a mage without mana, a necromancer in a Light kingdom, player-as-NPC, and other weird classes and restrictions. In real games, it’s not possible to have such situations, players probably just drop the game, but it’s a great inspiration for game designers to think about how to make such situations possible in games. So, I would recommend reading LitRPG books for game designers.
#litRPG #books #videogames #gamedesign #inspiration #gamemechanics
