Customer Reviews

Game Design Foundations (Wordware Game and Graphics Library)

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

 

 

The title of this book is "Game Design". You might think, therefore, that most of it would be devoted to the design aspect of making games. This is not the case.

Most of the book is a shallow survey of the different aspects of game development. Programming, art, audio, production, testing, and the various tools used by each department. Everything except design, it seems.

Pederson writes the book as if you have just been appointed the job of creative director on a videogame development team. If that's the case, it's silly for him to be giving this survey of information that you probably already know.

The first few chapters are actually about game design, but the ideas here mostly fall into two categories: stuff that a game design lead would already know, and stuff that is wrong. His formula for making games consists of reading the reviews for previous games in the same genre, keeping the good parts, and fixing the flaws. This is not a recipe for making a hit game. This is not how Tetris, Diablo, Zelda, or The Sims were made.

How about some advice for level or mission designers? How about some advice for anyone other than the ultimate authority of a game development team who wants to make their game better but doesn't know how?

The one thing I liked about this book was Pederson's point about how game ideas are a dime a dozen. It is so true; I've been working on games for ten years, and it always seems like I'm drowning in other people's ideas. I am glad I'm not the only one who feels this way, and I don't regret reading the book, if it was just for his persuasive arguments on this one point.

Let me start by saying that I truly looked forward to the release of Pedersen's Game Design Foundations. Very few books deal with this topic in a satisfactory manner, so every time you see a new release advertised, you get your hopes up.

Well this one was a letdown, because it contained very little information, I hadn't found for free on the internet. Here is what I wished I had known before forking out my cash...

The book starts off with a section where the author takes you through a few of his war stories and learned rules. A lot of them makes sense and are a good contribution to the book as such. An example could be "Share your toys", where Pedersen urges us to help others unselfishly, instead of trying to keep your experience and succes to yourself.

The next section is devoted to game ideas. In this chapter Pedersen lists more then 1200 ideas for games. The ideas consist of an extensive list of sports (of which many have been developed as games today), movies (where he lists the main idea behind each movie), board games, music and authors. Some of these have merrit, but the 1200+ number is not so solid. For example "mythology", "mythological creatures", "norse mythology" and "Irish mythology" are counted as 4 different game ideas. In my opinion, these first two sections are the most valuable in the book, and you should only consider buying it if these things have caught your attention.

The third section is devoted to research. One such object of research is a comparisson between the Rainbow Six and Delta Force series of games. Pedersen goes to great lengths to name every weapon in each game (+ their sequels and mission disks). In my book this doesn't really add value to the research. Whereas the parts about what is good and bad about each game is non-existent for quite a few of the examples and when it is existent it is limited to a few sentences like "has multiplayer support". Whereas research in design work obviously has its place, Pedersen really gets around the nitty gritty and important bits in an easy and rushed fashion.

The fourth part of the book is aimed introducing the games designer to the tools involved in building a game. Pedersen takes us through art and animation packages, game engines and sound tools to name a few. I wonder why this section is in the book, because everything reads like a marketing brochure for the individual products, so there is really no difference from what advertising materials you'd get from the respective producers of these tools. In this section we also get exposed to very basic programming and you learn to make your own tic-tac-toe game in Visual Basic. 5 pages are devoted to designing user interfaces. A good and welcome idea, but one could have wished for more then 5 pages, out of which several go to describe user interfaces in card games. Pedersen also tries to explain basic scriptwriting.

The last section (save the appendices) is devoted to different aspects of the design document. A basic attempt at explaining its use and structure. If you want to read about design documents and their application, I would suggest Luke Ahearn's Creating 3D Games That Sell, Rollings & Morris' Game Architecture and Design or Game Design Theory and Practise by Richard Rouse III.

When all is said and done, this book confuses me, because it tries to accomplish so many things(without an overarching structure), but does neither of them particularly well. It kinda reminds me of Luke Ahearn's Creating 3D Games That Sell, which is basically 3 different books attempted in one book. Just to clarify, that book contains sections which are easily worth the cover price. I am sorry, but Game Design Foundations will not teach you to be a games designer on your own, or how to break into the games industry as a budding games designer. Roger Pedersen got easily around this one; There are very few things you couldn't find on the net with half an hour of searching. If you are serious about learning games design and development, then get Rollings & Morris excellent book Game Architecture and Design, or if you just want a "foundation" course, check out Saltzman's Secret of the Sages. Sadly, this one doesn't deserve the cover price...

I've read all the game design books that I have been able to find to date. This is one of -- if not *the* -- worst that I've found.

- The title is completely misleading. It has next to nothing to do with design.
- The "design" notes are poor anecdotes from one project or another, and last somewhere around 10% of the total book.
- His "ideas" are literally a multi-page list of movies. MOVIES. With 2-3 sentence descriptions of each. Not once, but TWICE, in the same book.
- He literally says at one point that you could make a game like the movie Alien, and make sure to call it something like Space Predator. Or you could cross Alien with the movie Jurassic Park, and be sure to make a dinosaur reference in the name, so now it might be "Space Raptor". (Seriously, these are actual names.)
- Huge parts of it are just mini-reviews of software products that you can get far more information from just reading the manufacturer's website.
- His example game near the end is a computer-based card playing game, so of course, he has to include the rules of poker, including variants like Omaha, etc. (because that information isn't readily available anywhere else!).
- Lots of it are just lists. Lists of movies. Lists of product reviews, etc.

In the end, this book is just terrible. It looks like something that someone pounded out over the weekend, but got printed because there were only a few other books on the market with "game design" in the title. Check out Rouse, Adams and Rollings, or almost any other game design book instead...

...staged?

Avoid this book, go for Rollings' book instead.

Well, I'd award zero stars if I could. Honestly, I haven't read the book but I can't imagine what it's like after meeting the man and seeing his presentation earlier today at XGDX. I can guarantee the two positive reviews are definitely planted by promoters. BTW, just because a book sells out doesn't mean it sold that many copies... they could've only had a dozen on hand... I don't know anyone in the industry (yes, I work in the game industry) that was eagerly anticipating this title.

One section I have read is the chapter where he reviews the game engines. In particular, I can comment on his review of RenderWare because I work for Criterion (makers of RenderWare). His review said plenty of nice things. Of course, we wrote them. All of the game engine reviews were nothing more than a cut-n-paste job from the websites of the engine. This is incredibly evident in the changes in voice between the reviews ("We" is used in one) and the 100% positive spin on all of the engines (only a few have been used in commercial games -- they can't all be that great). Not sure who edited this, but they definitely let one slip by...

I found out about this guy by reading his arrogant post on flipcode.com entitled, "World Famous Game Designer Available". That's a mighty big thing to label yourself as especially when your writing books for 5th graders on game design. The book is for the absolute of the absolute newbie. To spend money on this book is a complete waiste. About all the information in the book, which is not that much, can be found at any game developing website or community. I wouldn't recommend this book for aspiring game designers. Also I'd like to point out something about the previous comments: you notice how either the book scored 1 - 2 stars or a perfect 5 stars? Can you see who actually read the book and who is promoting it?

Reading this book is like sitting down with the author and having a free flowing discussion about his 27 (or so) years in the computer game design and development business. The book almost seems to be what he would say to a high school senior thinking about working in the game industry. He handles such different topics as the salary levels of various job types, what to study in college, the gaming companies and the 'headhunters' (recruitment agencies), the types of jobs in the industry -- in short nearly every aspect of working in the business.

He stresses that the game developer is not the programmer, not the artist, not the musician. The developer is the original designer who develops the concept and tells the others what to do to make the game viable. As such the developer needs to know a bit about programming, a bit about art, a bit about music to be able to tell these other professionals what to do. He gives a little introduction to each of these fields (and more) without going into great details. There are also other professionals in the business. There's the guy who designs the box art, the salesman who shows the game to the potential distribution channels.

There is big money in the game business, but there are also big companies that can put big dollars into designing a new game. Mr. Pederson has been there and done that in the gaming industry. Believe what he says.

There is a disk that comes with the book with sample code and a movie on a cinematic art form.

Well, I finished Roger Pederson's book, Game Design Foundations. It was an interesting read and I look forward to the class he'll be co-instructing. (Gameversity.com - April 1st 2004)

I feel that if you approach the book with a "gimmie teh codez" mentality, you won't like it. It's not a cook book for making a game design document although there is one included. The author takes a more holistic approach and almost seems to ramble on in some parts. For example, instead of presenting a blank design document and saying how to fill out X, Y, and Z, he presents a design document from a game that he was created so you get a feel for the level of detail that is needed. Instead of saying you need to research your topic, he shows you an example of such research and the level of detail required to informed. Mr. Pedersen talks about script writing and the differences between a linear story and game organization. He does that by showing involved examples of each style. The author touches on a large number of topics and exposes the reader to what it really means to be a game designer.

I think he does of real good job of trying to create the mindset needed by a game designer. If you come at the task as a writer, programmer, or artist, you're going to need to open your eyes to the bigger picture.
--
TAZ

This book serves more as a reference manual than an introduction to Game Design. Sometimes when you are designing a game you run into a brick wall and don't know where to go with it. There will be some unbalance, whether difficulty, story, or design that may not work. This book serves perfectly just for that. Most of the game design books I read just seem to tell you the same stuff over and over, but the author went with a formula based method for designing. Most of the great designers I see come from a computer science discipline rather than art or writing (Sid Mier, Chris Crawford, Will Wright). It gives a more holistic, complete approach rather than "just get it done."

At the 2003 Game Developer's Conference (a four day
international show for the game industry) Game Design
Foundations sold out in 3 days as 100s of competing books
remained unsold.

Mr. Pedersen describes by example and clear, enjoyable reading
how to become a game designer. This is a great book for
students and novices who have said "I can make a game" or by the
millions of avid game players who have remarked "I could make a
better game than 'the one I just played.'"

If you are a programmer, an artist, a producer who wants the
skills to be a game designer or if you are creative and just
want to design your game, your vision then Game Design
Foundations is the book for you.

Game Design Foundations teaches the techniques used by top game
designers of videogames (Playstation 2, Nintendo, XBox, arcade
and handheld) and computers (Window, MacIntosh, Linux).

Game Design Foundations decribes in detail the tools a designer
needs to know about such as art packages (2D and 3D), 3D game
engines, audio and video software, project management software,
how to write a Hollywood format script and the basics of
programming plus the game designer's key function documentation
and research. Over 1,200 free to use game ideas are included to
help jump start your life as a professional game designer.

When one GDC attendee from Buenos Aires asked for the book on
day 4, he was told it was sold out. Seeing him quite sad, the
bookseller suggested ordering Game Design Foundation from
"Amazon.Com" which made him smile again.