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Masters of Doom (Book reference)
This book tells the story of id Software, the company that created the game "Doom". It mainly focuses on the life of the two key people of the studio, John Romero and John Carmack, from their first experience with videogames during their youth to their split-up after the massive success of "Quake". It also goes through the numerous hits that they created throughout their careers: "Commander Keen", "Wolfenstein 3D" and of course "Doom". Full of un [...]Keywords : id software, john carmack, john romero, doom, wolfentstein 3d, commander keen, quake, shareware
Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design (Book reference)
An introductory book about Game Design. The first part focuses on general tips about Game Design (storytelling, balancing, etc.). The second part is dedicated to a presentation of the different videogames genres. The first part of the book is clearly the most interesting one, as the second part is both aging fast and not as detailed as we could have expected. Please note that this book received three updates greatly extending the part about Game Design tips, titled "Fundamentals of Game Des [...]Keywords : games design, tips, video games genres
Game Design Foundations (Book reference)
Rather than a book on game design, this book is actually a kind of "introductory book" to the world of professional video game creation. Without going into details, it goes over several topics like video game genres, the various tools available (in 2003) to create games, 3d art, and sound, the basis of computer programing, and lists of many examples of actual games and games ideas, with a short description. While most of the book content is a bit outdated today, some chapter remains in [...]Keywords : game design, game programming, introduction, tools
The Art of Interactive Design (Book reference)
This book deals with the topic of interactivity from an overall point-of-view. Its 400 pages are divided in 4 parts. The first one is dedicated to the fundamentals concepts of interactivity. The second one provides many design tips using real-world examples of successful and flawed applications interfaces. From these examples, the third part lays down a general theory of interactivity, completed by an historical perspective of the software industry in the fourth part (including the way it gather [...]Keywords : interactivity, design, theory
Game Design: Theory & Practice (Book reference)
This large 500 pages book dissects the various aspects of Game Design: brainstorming for ideas, what players are seeking, artificial intelligence, storytelling, writing Game Design Document... Written by industry veteran Richard Rouse III (who designed the action-horror games The Suffering, among others), this book is full of wise and relevant advices for Game Designers, whether they are working alone as indies or in a big team. The originality of this book lies in the in-depth interviews of fam [...]Keywords : game design, analysis, richard rouse III, centipede, sims, ed logg
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Book reference)
This book is dedicated to the history of computing, but deals with the history of computer and video games too. The main topic is the birth and legacy of the "Hacker" movement: a group of talented youth people who initiated a drive for computers to be a tool available and useful to everyone. During the dawn of the 60's, in the U.S., at the famous MIT university, a group of students changed the very idea of "computing" by using one of their university's computer to create all [...]Keywords : hackers, MIT, spacewar!, apple II, steve wozniak, sierra on line, ken and roberta williams, homebrew computer club
Understanding Interactivity (Book reference)
The first (self-published) edition of a book later know as "The Art of Interactive Design". This book deals with the topic of interactivity from an overall point-of-view. Its 400 pages are divided in 4 parts. The first one is dedicated to the fundamentals concepts of interactivity. The second one provides many design tips using real-world examples of successful and flawed applications interfaces. From these examples, the third part lays down a general theory of interactivity, comp [...]Keywords : interactivity, design, theory
The First Quarter : A 25-year History of Video Games (Book reference)
The first edition, self-published, of one of the best book ever written about the history of video games: The Ultimate History of Video Games. Over more than 450 pages, the book explores the American history of videogames with a great deal of details: the beginnings with Spacewar!, the rise and fall of Atari, the arrival of Nintendo, the birth of the ESRB alongside the Nintendo-Sega war, etc. It also focuses on several important trials related to video games: the Atari-Ralph Baer case for th [...]Keywords : history, usa, nintendo, sega, sony, atari, trials
Game Design: Secrets of the Sages (Book reference)
Most Game Design books tend to illustrate their ideas with some "case studies" coming from industry professionals. This books pushes this idea to the extreme: its 470 pages are solely dedicated to interviews with video game industry professionals. Over 200 professionals are interviewed, mostly American ones, ranging from unknown people to celebrities like Richard Garriott, David Perry, Sid Meier and Peter Molyneux. The advices and tips they give are both insightful and inspiring, and g [...]Keywords : game design, professional tips, industry, interview
Game Over - Press Start To Continue (Book reference)
This book tells us the history of Nintendo, and more specifically how it conquered the US video game market in the 80's. This book details the first steps of Nintendo in the field of video games, both in Japan and in the US. It explores arcade hits like Donkey Kong, alongside with the NES and its most popular games series such as Mario and Zelda. The form of the book is brilliant: it's written like a captivating novel. But the main point is the substance: this book is literally filled with a lot [...]Keywords : nintendo, history, hiroshi yamauchi, japan, usa, mario, minoru arakawa, shigeru miyamoto