Customer Reviews

Dombrower's Art of Interactive Entertainment Design

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

 

 

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.

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).