Customer Reviews

Ultimate Game Design: Building Game Worlds

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"Ultimate Games Design" There seems to be no shortage of games design books, and they all claim to be the ultimate. All of them wants to deal primarily with the big fluffy ideas of the lead design - the overall idea of the game and so forth. Few of them has anything to say about the actual execution in terms of level design for example.

Untill now. Despite hating the title (and the colour scheme) of this book, I have to bow to the ultimate thing. This is as good a good as you will get right now about actually building game worlds - the level designs, the modelling, the texturing, the lighting and so forth. It also has one of the mandatory chapters on getting into the industry, where Tom Meigs goes beyond the usual war stories from the pros and repetitive listing of roles in the games industry, to actually offer the reader a good ammount of introspective questions to ponder and sage advice to gear up for the bumpy ride ahead.

So from hating it, this book has become one of my absolute favourites on games design. Well done Tom Meigs, whoever you are!

If your not in the gaming industry, but want to be, then this book will be a very valuable resource to you. For me, it was a welcome break from reading all software books. Which you must also do to get into gaming, or at least the art or programming jobs. This book reveals little known facts such as getting a job in the QA dept of a game company is a great way to get in if your not an artist or programmer. It also paints a picture of an industry that has its problems like anything else. Great chapters are included that discuss level mapping concepts and design techniques that are sure to boost ones though process as well as good interviews with key gaming gods. It simply does a great job at covering the gamut that is games. The author also gives you some good tips on what game developers "who hire" think like, cause he probably has done it. Must read for any potential game industry people. Harsh reality in many ways.

Great book and a great help in my studies. The CD was full of helpful tips. It helped studying game design and development.

Tom Meigs does a great job with this text. It goes over all of the concepts that you need to think about when designing your own levels, characters or even complete games. He includes many interviews with industry pro's that really "tell it like it is." The best part, I think though, is the last chapter where he gives some examples of the different episodes that have happened at the companies he has worked for. Man, stress can drive some people crazy.

Tom Meigs, Ultimate Game Design: Building Game Worlds (McGraw-Hill, 2003)

While there's a decent amount of useful information here, the reader of books on game design has seen a good deal of it before in other game design books. If it's your first game design book, it will likely be quite helpful to you; those who have read two or three other general books on game design are likely to only get anything out of the interviews.

I'm trying to get started in games and have bought many books to help me out, but this one is by far my favorite. Once I got it, I could jump right to chapters that answered many of the questions I had been wondering about. I like sports games and so all of the stuff on building fast games was useful to me. I think anybody getting going in games will want to use this book alot.

Ambiguous content with statements such as light can be very useful... AND! This book is of no value to any one who is remotely interested in greating/building actual game worlds. You would be better off giving the book a miss and check the forums out on the internet. I am gutted that I made the mistake of reading and believing the comments made on the books contents which now seems obvious these were placed by the authors friends and relatives. It's a pity Amazon do not accept returns! As such the book is destined for the bin.

I have been looking for a game design book that shows me examples of how to do stuff fast and not just talk about players that want this or that in their games. This one shows you everything you need to know. I think after reading it that you can start making a game fast and get it out there. It is thebest I can find.

I'm trying to get started in games and have bought many books to help me out, but this one is by far my favorite. Once I got it, I could jump right to chapters that answered many of the questions I had been wondering about. I like sports games and so all of the stuff on building fast games was useful to me. I think anybody getting going in games will want to use this book alot.

I really recommend to this book everyone I meet that is interested in how games get made or if you want to make games yourself. As for me, I want to be a game artist. Every section has useful items that I haven't found anywhere else. If you want to take game seriously - this book can help you out. The reference section alone is a goldmine.