Discover the principles of game balancing with the book Game Balance by Ian Schreiber. The publication focuses on how to think about game balance and how to systematically evaluate it during game design and testing.

Game Balance is a professional book dedicated to balancing game mechanics so that a game feels fair and remains enjoyable for different types of players over time. Whether you are designing a board game, card game, or video game, proper balancing is an essential part of game design. The book addresses topics such as adjusting rules and parameters, working with game economies, difficulty scaling, and differences between characters and player options. Its aim is to provide the reader with an overview of approaches that can help tune a game and identify problematic areas in the design.

Use Game Balance as a guide for creating and testing games. The publication offers methods and recommendations that can facilitate uncovering imbalances and inform your decision-making during iterations and balancing adjustments.

Why choose Game Balance?

• Focuses specifically on game balancing and on how to think about it in practice.
• Provides procedures for analyzing and tuning mechanics during game development.
• Helps understand the impact of rule settings on the player experience.
• Highlights common sources of imbalance and ways to detect them during testing.
• Supports a systematic approach to iterations and design adjustments.

Main features of the book Game Balance

• Suitable as study material for various types of games (board, card, video, and more).
• Describes approaches to analyzing game rules and parameters.
• Covers testing and tuning of game mechanics.
• Helps structure thinking about game balance from the perspective of player experience.
• Encourages iterative work on balancing throughout development.