Customer Reviews

Game Development Essentials: An Introduction

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I teach Survey of the Game Industry, Game Design & Game Play, and Project Management at the Art Institute of California: Orange County. Being a frugal person myself, I have not required my students purchase a textbook for any of my classes until now. Ms. Novak's book has become the single source of required reading for ALL 3 of my classes. Breezy, intelligent, and designed from the first sentence as an instructional tool, you will learn a great deal about the game industry from it. I could not possibly recommend this book any higher than to commit my classes to it.

I'm a professional game designer with 7 years experience and found Ms. Novak's book to be a great introduction to the process of game development. It is well-organized and covers a wealth of relevant topics. The lucid writing and full color screenshots make it easy to read.

Unlike many other introductory books, Ms. Novak's text does not mislead the reader into thinking that becoming a game developer is an easy path, where a great idea and good pitch can allow you to create your dream game. It is a responsible and accessible text that anyone interested in game development would find helpful and insightful. Obviously, as an introductory text, its content is not particularly useful to industry professionals, though I found the profiles and the section on history to be enjoyable.

I don't understand Mark Baldwin's objection to the profiles, because I feel that they provide insight to the industry that is immensely valuable to those new to the field. Ranging from industry greats, such as Louis Castle and Richard Garriot, to current students, a wide variety of perspectives and thoughts are presented. As an aside, I can understand some of Mr. Baldwin's comments from an academic perspective, but from a practical point of view, I must disagree with his harsh appraisal.

I would recommend Ms. Novak's book to anyone who wants to learn the basics of the game development process.

This book is as good an introduction to the game development process as I have come across. Incredibly current, peppered with wonderful interviews and comments from major professionals in the field. I especially like the CD-ROM which includes a wealth of demos and development tools.

I've been making games for 19 years and I couldn't disagree more with Mark Baldwin's criticisms of this book. Jeannie Novak has written a fresh, all-encompassing book on the subject of game development. The industry is rapidly evolving and this is one of the few texts to keep up with current thinking and present it in a manner that is easy to digest.

I really enjoyed the sidebars and interviews. Jeannie went all out - interviewing some of the brightest stars in this business. OK, so you can dismiss my interview (pg.300), but the rest are informative and interesting.

It's disappointing to see such nit-picky criticism. If this is the same Mark Baldwin that did Empire (I loved that game) then you've been around long enough to know how useful a book like this is. Students of game design and anyone eager to learn more about this industry will get a lot out of this book.

Having written for games over the past few years, I found Ms. Novak's book to be an essential part of understanding the professional game world. The book takes the reader on an informative journey through the ins and outs of the game development industry, starting from the beginning of electronic gaming. This book is not only a good learning tool for students, but also for anyone interested in game design as a profession. Further, the clean and understandable language is pleasure to read. Simply a must-have for any aspiring game designer.

This book was published in 2005, and at the pace the game world changes it's now slightly dated. The book is a good source of information about game creation if you are very much a beginner and have no idea about how to go about designing, marketing, or the elements that go into creating a good game and want to know what's in store for you as a game designer.

The book is well-written, textbook-style, and a reasonably good overview of the gaming world as it existed in 2005. It's an interesting scan-through for older gamers and a very good tool for the younger, inexperienced gamer/designer.

I got the book remaindered for less than $4 and feel it was probably worth that, but I wouldn't advise spending anything more for it at this time. The accompanying disc has only trial versions and includes GameMaker, a newer version of which is available on-line from Yo-Yo Games for free.

This book is a great introduction to the game industry in general. It doesn't delve deeply, but does a flyover of what is becoming an increasing complex medium. It hits the points someone seeking to enter the industry needs to know - everything from features of the companies creating games to current styles of development.

It would work great for an introductory class for students entering the industry, and as a good overview for non-students who find themselves called upon to understand the industry as it grows and challenge other media.

If there are any faults, they are in the book covering so much territory that it can't provide detail. This is OK for an introductory book, but to get to specifics one might look at other books in the same series by Thomson Delmar Learning, e.g. the newly published Game Story & Character Development.

I would probably have given it 5 stars if it weren't for the few mistakes made. For example on page 218 there is a screenshot of C&C Generals and the caption says "Praetorians uses terrain as a boundary" with the image credit given to Eidos Interactive! Wow... It's probably just a mistake someone else made and not Novak, but still. I haven't been able to locate an errata list on either the publisher's website nor Novak's, but aside from a few minor typos I haven't found any other mistakes.

For a book published in late 2004, an updated edition seems a long time coming for a book that needed it. I see the second edition is due out August 2007 so that's good. Too bad my class didn't wait until then. I was required to purchase this first edition.

I don't know if I'd recommend this to anyone just browsing the shelves for a book on game design, unless you have more money than the typical student. At $64, I would hold this book to higher standards. Thomson Delmar Learning doesn't really target the mass market, so you'd expect to pay a little extra and receive a little extra in return. But price aside, I agree with all the other positive comments. If you are interested in the subject matter then I really would recommend this book. Maybe just wait a few months for the 2nd edition.

The demo CD is lackluster in my opinion. All it had were URLs to demo games and game engine trial versions. They could have saved some money and just had a page at the end of the book list the URLs.

The interviews with and comments by the industry pros are very nice for the beginning student to read. The book is very colorful and has lots of pictures. That makes it sound childish but it really does help with the reading. I'm used to reading technical books on programming and even I found this format to be useful and it fit well with the subject.

In places, the author talks about generic game ideas and then references a specific game, as if this game is a shining example of the topic and it beat out all others. The topics are so generic that any game in the genre discussed could be used as a reference. To me this reeks of product placement.

One other thing that bothers me is the inclusion of "credible" studies and surveys by renowned research organizations like Nielsen. It isn't so much the fault of the author as it is the proliferation of surveys. One study sampled 33 medical professionals, came up with surprising results, and made the following statement: "The next step? Surgery simulations!". I'm sorry, but sampling 33 doctors means absolutely nothing. Get back to me when you sample 33,000. A different survey of 1,000 males in 2003 found 10% watched less television, 33% said in-game ads helped them decide which products to buy, and 50% actually liked the inclusion of real products in games. The next statement makes a conclusion: "Major corporations are now considering product placement in games as a significant form of advertising." How many millions of males in the United States alone play video games regularly? Wow, 1,000 sure is representative. Now the rest of us have to be subjected to in-game ads, which are repulsively annoying, thanks to the wrong set of 1,000 people surveyed. Sigh. Yes, I know it's impossible to survey a representative sample. So don't bother with surveys. I'm going off on a tangent, but the point is this book is pretty good. Just ignore the surveys.

Jeannie Novak's book Game Development Essentials is an excellent text covering the scope of today's gaming environment. Everything from story development, marketing, character development and audience demographics is covered in this text. She uses highly appropriate first person narratives from industry professionals and has excellent study guide questions at the conclusion of each chapter. The CD included also has great game demos and trials as well as excellent links to web sites that add enrichment to the reading. I look forward to her other upcoming titles.

Aside from needing the book for school, it has some very interesting info about the gaming company, and some current games.