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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great General Concept, Questionable Implementation, June 29, 2001
This review is from: Infinite Game Universe: Mathematical Techniques (Advances in Computer Graphics and Game Development) (Hardcover)
Infinite Game Universe is based on a concept derived from the game Elite, of which I have happened to play extensively in my former gaming life. The overall idea behind this book is outstandingly stimulating, that being the use of mathematical equations in place of rampant memory use in order to create games with limitless dimensions of play. Unfortunately, most of the actual specifics detailed in the book were yawners and I nodded off more than once trying to read this book. It had the flair of your typical college textbook. For example, a good 1/3 of the book is dedicated to writing and analyzing your own psuedorandom generators and I found this to be a good example of excess. However, I am not actively trying to create an infinite game universe and it is quite reasonable that there are some people out there who would enjoy the specifics far more than I did. I picked up a couple cool ideas and the importance of the "infinite game universe" concept was emphasized by the very existence of this book! It is almost worth adding to your shelf as a reminder that there are patterns in this world that can be represented in better ways than 80 Megs of disk space. (Remind me to mail my copy to Bill Gates one of these days.) And, this concept has quite a future in the embedded world where resources will be quite limited for a new wave of interactive media & games. Overall, I enjoyed some examples in the book and did not consider this to be a poor use of money. And I applaud the author for detailing the physics of the "Infinite Game Universe" because if more programmers considered these methods, we'd all have a little more space on our hard drive and games that provided a lifetime of adventuresome play!
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
What a great title, November 8, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Infinite Game Universe: Mathematical Techniques (Advances in Computer Graphics and Game Development) (Hardcover)
I was interested in the book based on its title, which is very pertinent to both my professional and academic interests. A procedurally generated universe is a powerful (but not a very new) concept. Anyway, aside from being a reminder (as another reviewer put it) that this field has potential and is growing, this book was overly verbose in describing vague, undetailed ideas. The examples were poor. There was never any "hard" math (one wonders how it got in the title). Most of the ideas were no-brainers. I felt that many of the solutions that were presented, were solutions that many people would come up with on just a few minutes of pondering. After having read 2/3 of the book, I wanted to hurry and finish just to get it over with. I was not the least bit stimulated by the possibilities, as none were offered that I hadn't already thought of just daydreaming. In fact, the book is so dry, it tends to take the excitement out of the subject. Even the section on Fractals--which I looked forward to the most--was completely lacking. In conclusion, I'd say that the important material could have been condensed into a thirty page paper on random number generation with some commentary on its application in video games.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Big, big dissapointment, August 8, 2002
This review is from: Infinite Game Universe: Mathematical Techniques (Advances in Computer Graphics and Game Development) (Hardcover)
The "universe simluation" view of game design draws on a diverse array of topics in computer science: random number sequences, cellular automata, neural networks, fractals, formal languages, scripting, object-oriented systems, physics, algorithms, data compression, artificial intelligence. While Thompson's book manages to touch on most of the above, no topic is explored or applied in any real depth, and the difficult prose hinders reading. The text is full of off-hand references to the classic computer game "Elite" as an example of an infinite game universe, but awfully short on specifics. A few hours of web research into gaming sites would have filled in the blanks. Even more shocking is the omission of "Starflight"---a groundbreaking computer role-playing game that used a good number of techniques in this book (i.e. fractal terrain generation) to support hundreds of detailed, explorable planets and star systems, each with its own atmospheric conditions, mineral deposits, ancient ruins, and mysterious life-forms. All that crammed onto a 720K disk---surely of great interest to this book's audience. Why is there no coverage of this classic? Likewise, I can't understand why the author provides an illustrated reference to "R-Type" --- the most predictable shoot-em-up game ever --- while not mentioning the massive, still-unequaled world-simulation that was "Ultima VII - The Black Gate." What exposition remains is obscured by the awful writing style and distinct lack of mathematical rigor. What should you read instead? I recommend "The Computational Beauty of Nature" for the math side, "The Official Book of Ultima" for the design philosophy; you can read up online about the relationship of object-oriented systems to simulations. For people who are thinking about game design, read up on Interactive Fiction and some of the old papers applying discrete maths to storyline, plot, character, environment. I've been planning for years to write a book on these types of games someday---perhaps it'll be sold on Amazon? :-)
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