Customer Reviews

Creating Casual Games for Profit & Fun (Charles River Media Game Development)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well... I definitely let myself be misled by the reviews and the title. This book does not present anything innovative that cannot be found in other texts or online with better detail and explanation. It seems to me that it is written for the layman who has little experience in playing games, never mind creating them. I cannot blame the book for a mistake I made in assuming it would be a more generic approach, and not merely using Flash as the development platform - but I cannot imagine this book helping anyone: too simple for the knowledgeable gamer / programmer who wants to create, far too sparse for the beginner. Some interesting ideas are presented about the business model, but again this is nothing that cannot be researched online. The text dedicates mere paragraphs to important topics.

Basically, I am at a loss as to why people would give this 5 stars...

Final suggestion for the would be casual games developer: Read the [..]articles and the mailing lists - I find that I can get a real world idea of the state and practices of the casual games industry.

This is a phenomenal book about a fast growing industry.

I could even see this as a college text. A great introduction to the industry and a solid primer for any game developer.

Filled with everything I needed to know about casual games industry - including how to get my stuff published. Without a doubt, I know I am better prepared to tackle this industry after reading this book.

Everything you could want to know about casual games is in this book. There are even examples of some of the most common types of games (code, walkthrough, and tons of pics to make learning to make the games easy.)

After reading his first book, Real-Time Interactive 3D Games: Creating 3D Games in Macromedia Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio, I was excited to see he had another title out. I normally drudge through computer books trying to get the information I know I need, but Partridge has an informative and engaging style to his writing that I greatly enjoy.

This is a must read for anyone interested in actually succeeding at making video games.

this is the second book of Partridge's that I've read and then chosen as the text for a class I'll be teaching. He is a consistently excellent author and his books are clear, concise and the sort of text that makes all others superfluous. Partridge neither assumes the reader knows too much, nor too little. He engages readers and developers from all parts of the spectrum and one is never left feeling spoken down to nor 'jargon fatigued.' my students find his books witty and his examples clear and useful. Professor likes the book and Students like the book...isn't that what's called a win-win situation?

This book was a fantastic read. The ideas and topics covered in Creating Casual Games for Profit and Fun are ground-breaking and revolutionary. I followed along with the examples and learned the simplicity in creating good quality casual games. The book even explains how to get your casual games published. The industry of casual games is in the middle of an explosion and this book shows the reader how to create these games so they can jump onto the proverbial "gravy train."

Allen Partridge has always been a visionary in his writing. You may also want to check out his other works such as; Real-Time Interactive 3D Games: Creating 3D Games in Macromedia Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio. The flow of the material is very easy to follow in both books and this author definitely knows what he is talking about. If you would like to see some of his casual games, I found two of them for online trial and download; Podz and Word Whacky.

I find this author's books to be a must read for anyone who wants to obtain a career in the video game industry.

easy to read and understand, if you want to create games and make money at it this is the right book, plus it gives you great ideas to market you games. but mostly it is not hard to read and understand

I don't go out of my way to write reviews often but this is an awesome book! It 's filled with great examples. It's changing the way I design everything.

I purchased this book on the basis of the title and after reading it I didn't feel it taught me what I was expecting.

The book is good and explains how to set up a game in order to get it published by one of the large game portals on the Internet.

But that's not what I bought the book for and the subjects I thought it would cover were either one or two lines or non-existant.

For example - what if I don't wish to use an online portal? The book has a paragraph explaining how to go it alone; this should have been a whole chapter.

The book also relies on the designer using Java (it even gives example of Java code), why? I am knowledgable in several programming languages but not Java, I can make games in C++ so I don't feel I need to know Java (the book certainly didn't put up an arguement as to why I should learn it).

As I said before, there were code examples given. I really did think the book would be about marketing side of games (hence the name: 'creating games for profit') so why delve into code examples of games?

Overall I thought the book was 4 stars and had some good information but not what I was expecting.

James

I've read a lot of book on this subject but none has been as concise or useful as this book. Partridge is not only an expert in the field, but he can actually tell you how to do this stuff! I've struggled plenty with other 'Casual'gaming books... but this one I can follow and I think succeed with. Especially with the new 'profit sharing' announced by ([...]) Microsoft for casual game developers, I am working on my game already thanks to this book.

I am already in the industry and this book was still helpful for me.

I would recommend it for aspiring casual game designers.