A good primer for anyone that wants to do game design beyond "an exact clone of World of Warcraft but I get to name the elves this time". Anthropy's laser-focus on a game as an exploration of a single mechanic may be a bit narrow, but it's a great stepping stone for a variety of game designs that doesn't get much love from the big companies.

Naomi Clark's second half focuses on storytelling and theme. It's a less revolutionary section, as pretty much every book on game design is a thinly rebranded essay on writing stories for books and movies, but it still details a lot of what makes storytelling for games unique.

But, most importantly, the book doesn't mention the hero's fucking journey anywhere, and so gets 5 out of 5.