Customer Reviews

Game Design: Secret of the Sages

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

 

 

They say that the best way to excel in a trade is to find a position as an apprentice under a great mentor who you would like to emulate. Wouldn't it be great to have Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux or Warren Spector at your disposal, to learn the trade of Game Design? These three game designers alone are responsible for some of the greatest hits ever in the computer games industry. About the next best thing to actually obtaining employment at one of their respective companies, is to get a chance to interview them and find out what some of those trade secrets are, that have made them a blatant success. Well, Marc Saltzman has done just that! He not only interviewed the luminaries mentioned above, but others including: David Cage, Toby Gard, Richard Garriot, Ron Gilbert, Tom Hall, Marc LeBlanc, The Levelord, Shigeru Miyamoto, David Perry, Bobby Prince, George Sanger, Chris Taylor, Roberta Williams and over 100 others!

These interviews have been nicely edited and put together in an extremely easy to read format and can be found in the book, "Game Design: Secrets of the Sages". This title offers a wide scope of information on various subjects regarding game development issues, such as: character design, level design, programming, AI, art, Animation, sound FX, music, testing, Marketing, web site design, and much, much more. What truly sets this book apart from others, are the dozens of interviews with the top respected game designers, so the information and opinions represented are ones to take note of. The book never claims to be an extensive study on the art of game design, it merely makes notions and true and tried development concepts accessible to all levels of readers. Various designers, who at times take opposite views on a matter, tackle each of the subjects. It is interesting to read each of these opinions and understand the interviewee's point of view on a matter. For example, there are variances on whether to use a design documents or not, how to flesh out the main characters and whether to use storyboards or not. The real point is that at times there may be more than one way to accomplish something, so the successful way of doing something may be as unique as the person implementing the technique. In fact, this exchange of ideologies runs throughout the various chapters in this title. It's kind of like attending a roundtable at the GDC.

Some other interesting chapters in "Secrets of the Sages" include topics like: breaking into the industry, game agents and headhunters, Design schools, resources on the net, distribution channels, and key industry conventions and organizations.

Overall, this title touches on a large amount of information, but it is important to note that the title is geared for the newer game developers. For example, you won't find any programming examples, nor any in depth study of technical information. Yet, if you are just getting started in the industry or don't know where to start, I would easily recommend that you obtain yourself a copy of this title. Maybe someday you'll be the one looked upon as the venerable mentor. The book can also be purchased as part of Macmillan Software's Game Programming Starter Kit 4.0 or you can purchase it separately at your favorite retailer.

This book covers all of the fundamentals for a games designer. The content is mostly theory and doesnt give many examples of design templates, but having worked for both EA and Acclaim I have come to realise that design templates are rarely alike in different companies and learning them is more a case of gaining experience at a particular company. I would certainly say that this book teaches, someone wanting to become a games designer, everything that a book can teach you.

This is the best book out there for anyone looking for Game Design info. I use 3d Game Studio to create my games, and I can not tell you how much this book has helped me with my design.

Please note I say design because this is not a programmers reference it does not tell you how to program a game, but it does tell you what you need to know to make a good idea into a great game. Also note the info in this book helped me come up with great ideas.

As you can read from many of the other reviews this book is simply a collection of e-mail interviews the author had with a large number of people in the game development industry. There is not much text that strings the interviews together.

While the book may be interesting to those who are new to the industry, it is not for more experienced game designers. The unfortunate thing about most of the interviews is that they are fairly brief and never really seem to get to the heart of the matter.

Ok, let me start by saying a lot of people mistake what the value in a book like this is. Many people seem to think that they can pick up this book, and after reading, they will be making the next AAA-title game. Let me bring this viewpoint down to reality. It won't.

There's many aspects to game development (design, programming, art, audio, business) and this book is basically an overview of some of *all* those aspects. The downside is, as I said, it won't get you all the skills that will be required to make a game single-handedly, or even with a group of friends, much less commercially or professionally. Where this book's value lies is in it's smorgasboard of varying (and sometimes blatantly conflicting) viewpoints from the who's-who list of top game developers in every aspect of game development. This will allow the reader to pick and choose the aspects that they think they most agree with and use them to their own ends.

What I think a reader can get out of this book is 1. There is no one-size-fits-all path to success in this field, and 2. you can pick the aspects that resonate with you and use these tips as weapons in your arsonal towards your own personal path to success in game development.

I think people who negatively review this book are expecting this book to tell them "how to make a game" as if there is a single way to do this (there isn't). Game development is a creative process that uses technology as it's creation and output device. Every person who goes somewhere in this field (such as the people interviewed in this book) makes their own success their own way. Reading this will give you the landscape of possibilities in terms of the varying ways this can be done. Read this in conjunction with other books (programming, business, etc, depending on your intended focus) and you can surely do what you want to in game development, just don't expect someone to do your thinking or hard work for you. Better still, actually design some games while reading books like this and others, and get your learning curve out of the way.

I quote DW Bradley of Wizardry fame when asked "What would you recommend to other people who want to do what you're doing right now (making games)?". His reply : "If you want learn to do something, you just do it. You'll learn all you need to know along the way".

This book covers all of the fundamentals for a games designer. The content is mostly theory and doesnt give many examples of design templates, but having worked for both EA and Acclaim I have come to realise that design templates are rarely alike in different companies and learning them is more a case of gaining experience at a particular company. I would certainly say that this book teaches, someone wanting to become a games designer, everything that a book can teach you. I would also recommend buying the following book on manga game characters, if you are serious about becoming a games designer (ISBN: 4766111206).

This book covers all of the fundamentals for a games designer. The content is mostly theory and doesnt give many examples of design templates, but having worked for both EA and Acclaim I have come to realise that design templates are rarely alike in different companies and learning them is more a case of gaining experience at a particular company. I would certainly say that this book teaches, someone wanting to become a games designer, everything that a book can teach you. I would also recommend buying a book on manga or storyboarding, if you are serious about becoming a games designer.

Although this book does not teach you anything about programming or level design (ect.), it does help out a lot. What I think people missed in the title is "Game Design." No one said it was going to teach you how to program or make levels. It just gives people something to think about when they are ready to start making games.

I feel this book will help me greatly when I'm ready to start making games. Heck, the first couple of interviews tought me something's I would've easily overlooked when I start to make games. This is a great book and a must have for anyone trying to learn about making video games.

I bought this expecting to get a step by step process for everything ( i.e. if you want to be a level designer, you should first draw so and so, then maybe you might want to consider getting such and such.) what I got was still a very nice book. You have a guy sit a bunch of big name game designers, ask them what they do to make the games they did, how they got into the industry, that kind of thing. It's all very nice, but it is not what I was expecting. there are no tutorials, just a bunch of advice.

If you dont own this book, you can't become a game programmer. Absolutely one of the best books around. This will tell you about how to design your game, how to chose topics, what you need, and help with publishing. It offers websites with help, and schools for game designers. This is not only for programmers. You want to be a graphic designer(for games)? This tell you the tools used by the big guys. It includes interviews with hundreds of professionals, including the makers of Final Fantasy and Mario Brothers. THIS IS THE BOOK. I reffer to this book before doing anything with games. But, they are coming out with a third edition, so new buyers, you can wait if you would like. This book was much more than I expected. Good job Marc Saltzman!