Worldbuilding is the process of creating a fictional universe with its own set of rules, systems, geography, and culture. Worldbuilding in game design centers the game’s core loop and is a product of work across different teams. Narrative Designers come up with thematic concepts only after the core gameplay loop has been determined and approved. The thematic concepts tie into the genre, like sci-fi and fantasy, after which the marketing team conducts surveys to test that the themes appeal to the game’s target audience.
Worldbuilding helps provide context to the narrative, making the game feel alive and immersive rather than a mere record of events. The world itself is only built once all the worldbuilding elements are set in stone. Reading guides and textbooks that present the topic through different lenses (game design, science fiction, architecture) gives designers a deeper understanding of the purpose and intricacies of worldbuilding. Expand your knowledge with the guide to 11 influential worldbuilding books below, detailing the specific concepts they teach.
1. Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman
Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman is structured around three units: Core Concepts, Rules, and Play and Culture. The book provides readers with the tools to create convincing worlds that are built around rules, systems, and player interactions. Strategies to balance mechanics with the narrative while accounting for player agency are explained in detail.
The Core Concepts unit goes into meaningful play, which is how player actions and responses affect the gameplay. Readers learn about the Magic Circle: the conceptual boundary where the usual rules from reality are put aside to allow the game rules to come into play.
The Rules unit expands on the structures that hold up gameplay, broken down into Rules on Three Levels. The three levels cover operational rules for game mechanics, constitutive rules for the underlying logic and implicit rules for social norms. Emergent systems are a part of this unit too, with explanations on how complex outcomes and behaviors come from simple rules.
The last unit, Play and Culture, explains games as narrative media. Readers learn about how they’re able to create, or write a story, using game mechanics. Games are social systems, with their own communities, identity, and cultural impacts, but these have greater weight tied to unique concepts. The unit covers strategies to design new forms of play as a result.
2. On Writing and Worldbuilding, Vol I, II, and III by Timothy Hickson
On Writing and Worldbuilding by Timothy Hickson has three volumes that act as practical guides to writing and building fictional worlds. The volumes are used by authors and game designers alike as they break down fundamental narrative techniques, like exposition and foreshadowing. Systemic worldbuilding elements like religion, commerce and empire building are included.
Volume I (2019) focuses on narrative fundamentals and aspects to consider during early worldbuilding. The Prologue and first chapters cover exposition problems, teaching readers how to craft the beginning of a story. Writing villain motivations and their relationship with heroes is covered, alongside hard (strict rules) vs. soft (flexible and mysterious) magic systems.
Volume II (2021) goes into expanding the narrative depth and integrating themes. Readers learn to create overarching themes that players resonate with. The themes have to line up with the narrative so that emotional moments hit as intended. Pacing and the way the information is delivered need to be taken into account.
Volume III (2022) teaches readers how to keep lore consistent across multiple sequels and expansions, which helps retain both immersion and engagement. The book offers advice on refining writing styles through multiple literary techniques, with practical notes about pursuing a writing career.
3. Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer is a cross-genre manual combining writing with worldbuilding. Wonderbook uses visual storytelling to explain writing processes, covering fantasy, horror, mystery and speculative fiction. The revised and expanded editions of Wonderbook add new essays from VanderMeer along with exercises and examples from contemporary authors.
The diagrams, sidebars and illustrations help make abstract, creative processes easier for readers to understand. VanderMeer goes into how to create fictional worlds while balancing game rules with creativity. This includes the method of using monsters as a metaphor, where creatures represent different cultural fears, mental states or thematic elements.
4. How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card
How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card has strategies to make internally consistent mechanics for magic systems, technology and politics. Readers learn how to create innovative questlines, lore and dialogue while still staying in line with the rules of the world.
Immersive gameplay is created when sci-fi and fantasy worlds follow their own logic and rules, but the concepts behind these have to be sustainable in the long run. Extrapolation, for example, is a sci-fi technique that imagines the future consequences of current scientific or cultural trends. The consequences have to be consistent, and line up with the world rules for players to believe it.
5. The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman goes into how human psychology interacts with design, and why ‘bad’ design frustrates users while the opposite empowers them. Products have to be designed based on what people want, in consideration of their skills and limitations, to ensure a satisfying experience.
Readers learn about affordances, which are the perceived and actual properties of an object that suggest how it can be used. The A, W and D keys that need to be pressed in a game for movement are affordances. Signifiers, indicators that communicate where actions need to take place (like icons), are explained in detail.
Norman covers feedback, which is the immediate response from systems that show the result of actions. Readers are taught how to make menus, HUDs and controls that are intuitive, like adding constraints so players don’t make mistakes. The book lays out several human-centered design principles that make sure mechanics feel natural and responsive.
6. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman explains that the way people make judgments and decisions and develop biases is affected by two systems of thought. Understanding the two types of thinking helps devs design tutorials, progression systems and decisions that account for player thinking patterns. Progression has to be doable, for example, with a difficulty curve that doesn’t throw off players but still makes them feel like they’v earned progress.
System 1 is when people think automatically, meaning that they respond purely on emotion and intuition. The decisions made with system 1 are efficient but tied down by bias. Devs have to design systems after accounting for cognitive bias to reduce errors in player judgement. System 2 is when decisions are more deliberate and well-thought-out, with greater attention and energy put in.
Errors in player judgment include avoiding a difficult boss fight for fear of losing despite its high-value reward. Kahneman brings in Prospect theory to negate this. Losses are more prominent when compared to gains, so rewards have to be more meaningful to compensate. There’re also instructions on designing UI systems to make sure players aren’t cognitively overloaded from the get-go.
7. Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding by Various Authors
Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding is a collection of essays written by veteran tabletop RPG designers. Each chapter is an essay that focuses on one major aspect of worldbuilding, like creating religions, geographies or creatures. Readers get a hands-on guide with practical advice, instead of a textbook.
Readers learn about how efficient worldbuilding contributes to long-term engagement and immersion in tabletop RPGs. Fantasy creatures and tropes need to be integrated in a meaningful way, so the book goes over worldbuilding techniques for including them. Balancing creativity with playability is emphasized throughout.
8. Playing at the World by Jon Peterson
Playing at the World by Jon Peterson is about tabletop RPGs, outlining their origins from war gaming and fantasy literature. Dungeons and Dragons is a key part of the book since the game contributed to role-playing becoming its own niche genre. Peterson expands on how Dungeons and Dragons came from hobbyist groups and became popular as a result.
Readers learn about the evolution of mechanics and storytelling, and how these changes laid out the foundation for storytelling in modern games. The reasons behind popular tropes, like dragons and quests, still being prominent today are explored with fanzines used as resources.
9. An Architectural Approach to Level Design by Christopher Totten
An Architectural Approach to Level Design by Christopher Totten outlines level design using both architectural and spatial theory. Totten deconstructs how level designers create spaces that contribute to efficient pacing. This is done by going into how players themselves perceive and navigate a space.
Readers learn methods to make spaces that guide player action and emotion, while maintaining visual appeal. The spatial experience theory is connected to this, which is how humans perceive and interact with a space. Totten’s book isn’t relevant to worldbuilding but still helps with creating an immersive space tied to lore.
10. Making Deep Games by Doris Rusch
Making Deep Games by Doris Rusch explores how games express complex human experiences, emotions and philosophical ideas. Theory is combined with practical exercises, treating games as being capable of conveying meaning, instead of just mechanics. Designers are therefore encouraged to integrate themes like identity and morality.
The practical design activities help readers experiment with making deep mechanics. Case studies and design passages help showcase how games bring in abstract ideas. Designers are guided through creating mechanics that resonate emotionally and philosophically. Readers learn to create experiences that push back on first impressions and encourage re-evaluation.
11. How Games Move Us by Katherine Isbister
How Games Move Us by Katherine Isbister explores how games evoke emotion, foster engagement and create meaningful connections in a community. Psychology is combined with design theory and case studies to show how games are able to move players emotionally.
Isbister highlights how games are made to elicit emotions via the mechanics, narrative and player interactivity. Readers learn about designing games so that players actively engage with the narrative rather than just hearing about it passively. The way characters interact with the player, themselves, and the world itself shape players’ emotional response to the whole game.
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