Dombrower's Art of Interactive Entertainment Design [Paperback]

Eddie Dombrower (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 1998

This guide shows beginners and professionals how to create game designs that can evolve into interactive entertainment. It gives specific steps on how to move from games to other media. The CD includes samples of interactive games and game design procedures.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Create interactive entertainment-with one of the pioneers of interactivity. He's the man in interactive games. The producer who made Kermit interact with kids. Creator and designer of the multi-million-dollar "Earl Weaver Baseball" and Executive Producer of "Return to Zork." Pioneering Product Designer for Atari and Team Leader at Mattel Electronics, game developer for Electronics Arts and of Activision: Eddie Dombrower. In this career-rocketing resource, one of the Masters of Interactivity shows how you, too, can zoom to the molten megacenter of the multimedia megapolis-now hotter than ever! In Dombrower's Art of Interactive Entertainment Design, Eddie Dombrower shares his vast digital bag of tricks so you can: design and create your own turbocharged interactive games; grab and hold the user's attention-the secret of a supersuccessful product; emulate real-life examples from Mattel, Atari, Electronic Arts, Activision, Jim Henson Interactive, and other sizzling game houses; heat up any software with discoveries made by some of the industry's most famous game designers and producers; master interactive technology with Eddie's clear and simple explanations; bust a move from interactivity straight to Hollywood-or simply use your game skills to advance any interactive multimedia career. Whether you're working in a garage or already in the mix, this soon-to-be industry standard is the one resource you simply can't afford to miss!

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Computing Mcgraw-Hill (January 16, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070174970
• ISBN-13: 978-0070174979
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,412,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good reference material but missing important elements, July 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dombrower's Art of Interactive Entertainment Design (Paperback)

Overall, I find this book very valuable but can not believe there isn't an example of any of the forms it describes in so much detail. I would recommend this book to those getting started in the software design or pre-production phase, but it wont be the end all book on this subject.

Also, this book must contain what amounts to the most useless CD-ROM of any computer book I have seen. Although before I purchased this book, I looked for a description of the CD-ROM contents, I thought, surely it must be examples of the design documents, but only found obsolete shareware game demos. It is almost as if the publisher wanted to charge an extra few dollars by including a CD-ROM...any CD-Rom.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, goes into great detail, although by now a bit dated., May 31, 2008

By 

Keith A. Weatherby II (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dombrower's Art of Interactive Entertainment Design (Paperback)

This is a fairly in depth look at what it takes to build a game, from a game designers standpoint. It covers picking your subject matter, your target audience, building your design document, what you need to know to work with those who implement your design, and many more topics. Pretty much every facet is explored. The author occasionally sprinkles anecdotes and stories from his nearly 17+ years of experience designing games. The style isn't boring at all. I might agree with the one other reviewer that this may not necessarily be the end all, but over all it's the best I've seen on the subject.

The only real cons about the book is the fact that now it's about 10 years old, and things have changed quite a bit. Also, as the other reviewer said, the cd is pretty much worthless. It was something the publisher probably felt they needed to have since everyone else was doing it. Occasionally the author will be wrong about a few things, but that's to be expected, as any single author can't have possibly played or been involved with every computer game or genre invented.

So if you want a good breakdown of what it takes to make games from the designer's perspective, this is the book to get. (Plus 35 cents at the time I am reviewing this is a steal).