Currently I’m reading some really interesting books for my bachelor-thesis, which is about “Episodic Games”. Unfortunately nobody has written a book about this topic, yet. So I’m reading a lot of stuff about the episodic format in television and I must admit that there’s a lot I didn’t know about TV series before. But I’m also looking into some good books about game design in general and other related topics.

The following ones I found especially interesting so far:

• Third Person: A lot of very good articles from various authors about the topic of “vast narrative” in different media such as tabletop RPGs, literature, comics and of course video games
• Patterns in Game Design: This book isn’t really fun to read, because it’s written very academically, but it provides lots of good definitions for terms related to games (so it can be used as a “lexicon of gameplay”)
• “Previously on…”: This provides a deep insight into why modern prime time serials such as Lost, 24, The Sopranos and others became so successful in the last years
• 21st Century Game Design: A book that takes a look at the different target audiences of games in the 21st century. Not so much about the “how to design a good game” but more about “why design it in a specific way”