Few weeks ago the London group of designers came across a video on relevant books for game designing (link).

This video generated a very good conversation in the group what are the ddo readings for the Xmas period.
I am summarizing here the list of suggestions emerging.

Foundational readings

Kobold guide to Boardgame design (Mike Selinker) > LINK

GameTek (Geoffrey Engelstein) > LINK

Building blocks of tabletop game design (Geoffrey Engelstein) > LINK (encyclopedia of game mechanisms)

Dice games properly explained (Reiner Knizia)

Characteristics of games (George Elias et al)

Challenges for Game Designers (Brenda Brathwaite)

Rules of Play (Katie Salen Tekinbaş and Eric Zimmerman) > LINK

Games: Agency as Art (Katie Salen Tekinbaş and Eric Zimmerman) > LINK (summary here)

Game Design Workshop (Tracy Fullerton)

Thinkertoys (Michael Michalko)

Board Game Publisher (Eric Hanuise)

White box: Game design workshop in a box (Jeremy Holcomb) > LINK contains “The White Box Essays” (also on amazon)

The Art of Game Design – A Book of Lenses (Jesse Schell) > LINK Provided with a deck on lenses and the related app for IOS

The Board Game Designer’s Guide (Joe Slack) > LINK

Board game Design Advice (Gabe Barrett) > LINK (advices from different designers)

Theory of Fun for Game Design (Raph Koster) > LINK (Psychology of fun)

Uncertainty in games (Greg Kostikyan)

Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games (Stewart Woods)

Board Games on my Mind (Adam Kwapiński)

Unboxed (Gordon Calleja)

Think like a game designer (Justin Gary)

You said this would be fun (Jeff Warrender) > LINK

Designing Board Games 1,2,3 (Enrico Feresin) > LINK

Elements of Game Design (Robert Zubek) > LINK

The art of computer game design (Chris Crawford)

The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game ( C. Thi Nguyen) > LINK

Lateral readings

The intelligence trap (David Robson) > LINK

Steal like an Artist (Austin Kleon) > LINK

Rocket Surgery Made Easy (Steve Krug) > LINK

Thinking In Systems (Donella Meadows) > LINK

Cardboard ghosts (Amabel Holland) > LINK

Game Storming 2.0 (Dave Grey & Sunni Brown)  > LINK (original here)

Obviously Awesome  (April Dumford)   (on product positioning)

Ego is the enemy (Ryan Holiday)

Other sources

GameDesignConcepts () > LINK full course

GameBalance () > LINK Article and full tutorial/course

Fail Faster (Playtesting journal) > LINK

GDC – Game Developers Conference: WEB and above all YOUTUBE

ShippBoard Games blog > LINK (connect Theme and Mechanic)

Videogame design books > LINK

Humble Bundle > LINK

BGG thread > LINK

The definitive guide by Geoffrey Engelstein TTGA > LINK
https://www.ttgda.org/blogs-and-videos