Your phrase "game design" can mean many things, including the overall concept, graphic design or the underlying software architecture. The latter is best addressed by a person with significant experience.
Innate talent aside, books are not going to be able to provide you with much more than general approaches.
There are a lot of talented self-motivated people out there with the ability to go and make this happen, but I don't think such a person would consider PM the best place to start. Games are a stretch for Perl, Frozen Bubbles notwithstanding.